Bosco’s Screen Share: Usage

Nice. What do I do with this?

Lots of things!
Our customers are using Bosco’s Screen Share for a variety of tasks: helping family and friends with computer problems, monitoring servers, collaborating with a co-worker, shopping with a friend, remote presentations to clients, and more.

Scroll down for a list of uses we’ve put together.

Bosco uses his screen sharing application to get cute pictures of himself drawn.

Overview
On this page, we have put together descriptions of several typical uses of Bosco’s Screen Share. For each use, we tell you the best way to accomplish the task.

If you have an innovative use you’d like to share with us and our users, jump over to the Support Form and drop us a note.

1. Help family and friends with computer problems.
Using Bosco’s Screen Share and talking on the phone, you can walk family and friends through the computer problems they face or even fix the problems yourself.

2. Monitor and configure servers from your desktop.
If you have your servers in a server room, you can save a trip down the hall by using Bosco’s Screen Share at your desk (or maybe at home!) to keep the servers running.

3. Collaborate with a co-worker.
Sometimes you need to work with someone, but it’s not convenient to get together. Use Bosco’s Screen Share and talk on the phone to work together, working with any application you like.

4. Present your work to a client.
Consultants often have difficulty presenting their work to clients because they can’t be there to answer questions as they occur. With Bosco’s Screen Share and a phone call, you can present and discuss your work effectively without having to visit your client’s office.

5. Shop with a friend.
Looking for the perfect gift or a great discount? Get your friend on the phone and use Bosco’s Screen Share to surf the web together.

1. Help family and friends with computer problems.
Using Bosco’s Screen Share and talking on the phone, you can walk family and friends through the computer problems they face or even fix the problems yourself.

Setup
Assuming your friends and family aren’t a bunch of Herbert Einsteins (yeah, we know that’s supposed to be Albert) when it comes to the computer (and you presumably are one or have them fooled), you may want to install Bosco’s Screen Share for them and add yourself as a favorite to their Favorites menu. When they need help, they should call you on the phone, then call you from Bosco’s Screen Share (or you could send them an invitation) when you are ready. If they call you from Bosco’s Screen Share, you won’t have to configure their routers and firewalls.

Remember that it doesn’t matter who calls whom. Once you are connected, you can take turns watching or driving each other’s screen.

2. Monitor and configure servers from your desktop.
If you have your servers in a server room, you can save a trip down the hall by using Bosco’s Screen Share at your desk (or maybe at home!) to keep the servers running.

Setup
Install Bosco’s Screen Share on each of your servers. Currently, Bosco’s Screen Share must run from a logged in user account and most likely, will not be able to run the login window. If this gives you heartburn, you might look at other products. But bear in mind that if they can give you access to the login window and other root features, they can potentially give someone else access as well.

Add each of your servers as a favorite with a fixed address to the Favorites menu in Bosco’s Screen Share on your desktop computer.

If you want to call more than one of your servers from outside your network (e.g. from home), you may need to give each server a different port in the Bosco’s Screen Share Preferences window and forward those ports from your router.

3. Collaborate with a co-worker.
Sometimes you need to work with someone, but it’s not convenient to get together. Use Bosco’s Screen Share and talk on the phone to work together, working with any application you like.

We believe that Bosco’s Screen Share could be especially useful for so-called “pair programming”. Actually, we’re not huge fans of the concept (nor of similar development management techniques that treat code production as too much a factory process and too little an artistic one), but hey, Bosco’s Screen Share is perfect for it.

Setup
You and your co-worker both need to install Bosco’s Screen Share. If you both intend to share screens with other people, then both of you should make sure your routers and firewalls are configured to accept calls. However, if this is going to be a monogamous screen sharing relationship, then only one of you needs to go through the router configuration exercise. Of course, if you are sharing screens over a LAN and don’t plan to share screens with users outside your LAN, then neither of you need to configure routers. Just dial each other’s LAN address.

4. Present your work to a client.
Consultants often have difficulty presenting their work to clients because they can’t be there to answer questions as they occur. With Bosco’s Screen Share and a phone call, you can present and discuss your work effectively without having to visit your client’s office.

Setup
You need to install Bosco’s Screen Share and make sure your router and firewall are configured so that you can received calls. Have your customers download and install Bosco’s Screen Share, then send them invitations to connect to you as needed.

Remember that it doesn’t matter who calls whom. Once you are connected, you can take turns watching or driving each other’s screen.

If you have to give a presentation to several people at once, you could use the web screen sharing feature of Bosco’s Screen Share and use an inexpensive phone conferencing service. You may need to configure your router to pass port 80 (HTTP) to your computer. This is probably much more cost-effective than popular screen sharing services if you don’t require advanced features such as recording your meeting.

5. Shop with a friend.
Looking for the perfect gift or a great discount? Get your friend on the phone and use Bosco’s Screen Share to surf the web together.

Setup
You and your friend both need to install Bosco’s Screen Share. If you both intend to share screens with other people, then both of you should make sure your routers and firewalls are configured to accept calls. However, if just the two of you are going to shop together, then only one of you needs to go through the router configuration exercise.