Everyone seems to be yelling for a Mac version of Netmeeting and that is mainly because just about every version of Windows has Netmeeting loaded on it. Something that isn't talked about so much is how much of a bandwidth hog netmeeting is and also it is VERY known that Windows only support Windows when it comes to netmeeting.

A great alternative is to use VNC (Virtual Network Computing) which is supported across many Operating Systems.

For instance, if you need to connect to a Windows PC (Windows 2000, XP, Vista, etc..) you would need the following.

1. Install a VNC client (there are many out there but I prefer a free version that seems to work pretty good called tightvnc which you can download at there website here. If there site is down, you can find an older copy in our Repository)

2. During install of tightvnc, make sure you select Full installation so both the TightVNC Server and Viewer are installed.

3. After install of tightvnc, click on Start - All Programs - TightVNC - Launch TightVNC Server (If you get an error message saying it is already started then look in your taskbar for an icon with a V. Right Click and select Properties.

4. Put your own special password under Incoming connections that you would hand out to people to access your Windows machine via VNC. Click Ok... You are now ready for someone to come take control.

5. Mac OS X user running Leopard has it real easy. They open Finder (its like Windows Explorer for mac users and the icon looks like a smiley face). Once Finder is open they click on Go- Connect to Server and are left with this screen

They just enter vnc://ip address of the machine that is running VNC.

6. The Mac OS X Leopard user gets prompted for that password you set in preferences.

7. After that you now have a window just like Netmeeting where you can completely control the remote machine but without all the bandwidth.

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If you have a Mac running Leopard (10.5.x or higher) then you have vnc built into your Mac. This allows you to remotely connect to another Mac via the way of vnc

All you do is click on Finder (the smiley face), then click Go and then Connect to..

Enter vnc://ip address of Mac you want to connect to

You will be prompted to enter the username and password of someone on that machine.

once you authenticate, you have full control of that mac. You can even change the window to Full Screen and you could hardly tell you are connected remotely.

This is very similar to Windows Remote Desktop Connection but vnc uses far less bandwidth then windows rdc by more then half.

You can connect to the following types of servers and other computers using Finder - Go - Connect to...

Mac computers that have File Sharing turned on

Windows computers with shared folders

Servers on your network that use Apple Filing Protocol (AFP) over TCP/IP, including Mac OS X Server, AppleShare IP, Windows 2000, or Windows XP servers

afp://

ip address of device

SMB/CIFS, NFS, FTP, and WebDAV servers running on Mac OS X Server, AppleShare, UNIX, Linux, Novell NetWare, Windows NT, Windows 2000, and Windows XP servers

smb://

ip address of device

FTP servers

ftp://

ip

address of ftp server

With read-only access you can copy files from the server, but to copy files to the server you may need another program. Visit the Apple website to find programs available for Mac OS X.