A Real Geeky Comedian
By David Shamah, The
Many people think that computer folk are without
humor or rather, without "regular people" humor. Are there any
people other than programmers and system administrators who think lines like
"Q: What do you call that geek from your high school class after
graduation? A: Boss!", or lame imitations of the old "Who's on First
routine, such as "Abbot and Costello try to buy a computer," (http://www.urbaczewski.com/humor/abbott-costello.htm),
are funny? Who else but geeks would see the humor in the Church of the Subgenius (http://www.subgenius.com) or cow jokes (http://userpages.umbc.edu/~dschmi1/links/cow.html)?
Is the joke "Q: How many Unix Support staff does it take to screw in a
light bulb? A: Read the man page!" even remotely as a few minutes of an
episode of "The Simpsons?"
So, it's understandable how computer people got a
reputation for being, shall we say, droll. I suppose all that data crunching
can warp the mind just a bit. Even I, who pride myself
on keeping in touch with the world of non-geek humor, think that this essay, (http://monster-island.org/tinashumor/humor/complab.html),
"50 ways to confuse people in the computer lab," is funny. But it's
not gut-wrenchingly funny the kind of funny we all, geeks and non-geeks,
seek. For that, we have traditionally had to turn to comedians and TV sitcoms.
Computer users may not be funny, but computers can be
a laugh riot and if youre into practical jokes, your PC can supply you with
endless hours of guffaws. Your computer can be the source of many a funny
prank, reducing hapless victims of your practical joke into blubbering boobs,
while you sit back and observe the goings-on.
Of course, you dont want to do anything too mean,
like unleashing a data-eating virus on a remote computer there's a difference
between funny and mean-funny. And even innocent pranks have to be administered
in the right way, in an appropriate setting and at the proper time. They're
only funny when played on someone that has a good sense of humor, who is not the
type to go off the rails unfortunately, qualities that are becoming rarer
every day. And of course, you can't go around bugging people all the time
although on a day like April 1, its probably OK to play an innocent prank. So,
if all the elements are in place, here is a little prank that will give you
and your victim some good laughs.
So imagine, if you will, a person you work with sitting
at a computer screen and opening up a blank document to begin working on. As
s/he is about to begin typing, a message appears on the blank page; something
like "be very careful what you write the government has eyes
everywhere!" or "I know where you live!" or "today is D-Day
the computers have decided to rise up and take control!" Then their
mouse starts swirling around, the word processing program closes itself off,
opens up again, turns on its screensaver, and generally gives the appearance of
a machine getting ready to explode or worse!
Imagine the chills going down their spines as
they watch their PC "lose it!" They'll probably start by unplugging
their keyboard and mouse, and maybe even rebooting. To no avail when the
computer comes back up, it'll be more PC insanity, guaranteed to drive them
batty! At which point they will be ready to throw the thing out the window
until you come in, all smiles, bearing gifts to calm them down (you've got to
pay to laugh in these kinds of situations if you don't want your nose
dislocated, I have found, even if the victim is a friend and even if it's April
Fool's Day).
No harm, no foul what they used to call
"good, clean fun." Only one problem just how do you get a remote
computer, on the other side of a room, a building, or even on the other side of
the world, to do your bidding? There's no magic involved, other than the magic
of IP networking and the application responsible for this can even be used
for "real" work, like controlling computers at great distances, even
if there is no one present at the keyboard.
The technology involved in this little caper is,
of course, called remote computing, of which the most well-known is PC
Anywhere. With remote computing programs, you install a server on the computer
you want to control from afar, and with your client or Web browser, in some
programs and you get full access to the remote computer's desktop and hard
drive. Basically, anything you can do sitting in front of the remote computer,
you can do with a remote PC program.
Sounds neat, but there is one slight problem
that may discourage even the most avid April Fool's
pranksters the price. PC Anywhere starts at about $200, and a popular
competitor, Go To My PC, costs about that much a year!
As much fun as driving other computer users can be, two hundred bucks is no
laughing matter the joke's on you if you spend that kind of money on a joke!
But you don't have to shell $200, or even $2,
if you want to get into remote computing for fun or profit! Just download RealVNC (http://www.realvnc.com), install the server on the
computer you want to control and the viewer on the computer you are doing the
controlling from, and you're in business!
RealVNC will help you with a variety of tasks, from
pranks to helping remote users with computing problems, for example. If you
have some important automatic task running you want to check up on, RealVNC will give you a bird's eye view of the event.
Forget an important document on the desktop of a PC you have running at home?
Just open up the RealVNC viewer, log on, e-mail the
file to your Yahoo or Hotmail account and download onto your work PC!
When you set up RealVNC,
you set up a password to allow access to the computer, although the free
version of the program does not allow encryption. Within an office network, of
course, this is not a concern, but you should be OK even if you connect
remotely to a computer behind a firewall. You can also restart the remote
computer, if necessary and do it using keyboard commands, if you want. Just
click on F8 from within the viewer and you get access to the remote computer's
alt, ctrl, and ctrl-alt-del keys. You can also log onto your connection via a
Web browser, if you don't have a RealVNC client
handy.
The program's setup is also very simple, and
logging on to the remote machine is a matter of a few keystrokes. There are two
problems for home users, however; security and the matter of the "floating
IP address" assigned by an ISP. For the first, having a firewall is
essential; you can set your firewall to accept connections from only one IP
address on port 5900, the port used by RealVNC. If
you are using the free edition, the RealVNC people
suggest using an SSH package, which will ensure encryption from outside RealVNC (see http://www.uk.research.att.com/archive/vnc/sshvnc.html
and http://sshwindows.sourceforge.net). It's not as complicated as it sounds, although with the personal or enterprise edition of RealVNC, you don't need to do this at all, since encryption
is built into those programs (pricing for the personal edition is about $30 per
computer). As far as getting a permanent IP address from your ISP, fuhgeddaboudit; sign up with a service like http://www.freedynamicdns.com
to get a permanent connection name you can send out to friends and clients.
RealVNC is Java-based, so it actually runs on almost
every computer platform there is; the download site has versions for Windows
NT/2000/XP, Linux, most Unixes, and even a VNC
version for Mac OS X (http://www.realvnc.com/resources.html).
True, the major virtual computing programs
have a number of features that RealVNC and its affiliates
do not, including collaborative computing, whiteboards, and other nifty
features. You do need to get something special for your $200 or your $200
annual fee! But if you want a basic client/server connection that will allow
you to take care of necessary tasks on a remote PC from anywhere in the office,
or in the world, RealVNC is your app.
RealVNC is so simple to set up, even a child could
do it within a closed network, that is. It's a bit more complicated for
remote connections, though. Because we're talking about involved Internet
technology, you of course want to read the documentation on all the products
mentioned above carefully. But if you do want to set up a remote over the
Internet system to control your home or office computer or to have lots of
fun playing pranks on those near and far without spending a lot or money (or
even any, if you're up to setting up OpenSSH), give
the world of virtual network computing, and RealVNC
in particular, a try.
ds@newzgeek.com