Using PC (not PPC!) as thin client

[spudgun]

Hi,

been using Xlobby for a while now, mainly to catalogue & play my music collection. I love this program coz it's customizable & it uses a PPC!

I'm now about to venture into using Xlobby to view my DVD collection (ripped onto HDD) via Zoomplayer.

Because of this I don't wish to use my PPC as a thin client. My setup will be this: A PC used as a server in another room connected via wifi to a basic PC to be used as a "set-top box" which is connected to TV (for DVD) & speakers for music. (Still with me?).

I have a laptop I would like to use as a thin client to control the "set-top" PC (again via wifi). Can this be done??? Or is there anyway to do something similar. Since I have the laptop, I don't want to purchace a cordless mouse & keyboard, and I don't wish to use the PPC (I find it a bit slow & unresponsive!)

Sorry for the long post,

[rembetis]

Well, there are a number of ways you can go about it, but I think the first thing you should know is that streaming DVDs from a server via WiFi is a tricky proposition. Perhaps others will post sucess stories, but I found it problematic and prone to lock ups (my wireless was one room away, and could send up to 54mb/s, but was typically less than that). I could get away with music, so long as my wife wasn't on the network, but DVDs was a no go. So I moved to an all wired situation, with Gigabit NICs and a switch, and its been fairly smooth sailing...

But to answer you main question, I don't think there's any reaosn why you couldn't run xlobby on the "set-top" pc and run a thin client on your laptop (as I imagine you did on your PPC.) You could also just connect to the setup via something like UltraVNC or Remote Desktop and control it that way. Either way, your response time will be dictated by the speed of both computers and the quality of your WiFi network (in other words, you may find the bottleneck was not in your PPC).

Hope that helps.

[spudgun]

Thanks,

I don't think there's any reaosn why you couldn't run xlobby on the "set-top" pc and run a thin client on your laptop (as I imagine you did on your PPC.

Next question -how do I run a thin client on my laptop?
I'm running XP Home SP2.

You could also just connect to the setup via something like UltraVNC or Remote Desktop and control it that way.

I'm thick! - I've tried using UltraVNC before but to no avail! how do I use this to take control of PCover wifi?

Thanks

[rembetis]

Next question -how do I run a thin client on my laptop?
I'm running XP Home SP2.

Well, I've never done it myself, but if you go into the client folder in your xlobby installation, there is a read me which spells it out. Basically you edit a config file (servers.txt) to reflect your set-top box's IP and then run xlobby2sd.exe on your laptop. Got to have .net on the laptop as well, though.

I'm thick! - I've tried using UltraVNC before but to no avail! how do I use this to take control of PCover wifi?

Did you install a VNC server on the machine you are connecting to and a viewer on the machine you are connecting with? Did you configure your router (open a port) and/or firewall to allow access? Once those things are done, it's a piece of cake. Fire up the UltraVNC viewer, type in the (internal) IP of the machine you're trying to commandeer, and enter a password if you're created one, and voila!