There was a meeting today but I wasn’t able to get to my office before meeting starts, and so I decided to connect to my remote computer from home to attend the meeting. Soon I realized that I chained four computers by “remote desktop”-ing from one to another. Here are the details:

Notation:

• Computer A - Laptop at Home
• Computer B - Desktop at Home
• Computer C - Desktop at Office
• Computer D - Laptop at Office

Facts:

• I didn’t bring D home last night
• My home phone is far away from B
• VPN is installed on B, but NOT on C

Limitations:

• To connect to C remotely, I must have VPN client installed
• To connect to D using remote desktop, I must be from intranet
• The meeting requires D and any phone

Solution:

1. 1. I dialed VPN from B connect to C. But I realize that I cannot reach the phone from B;
2. 2. So I turned on A positioned close to the phone, and connect to B with Remote Desktop. Next I found I actually need to connect to the meeting server from D;
3. 3. From A, in the Remote Desktop window connected to B, I tried to open another Remote Desktop connection to D. But D only accepts request from intranet and thus B’s request is rejected;
4. 4. From A, in the Window showing B, I connected to C using Remote Desktop;
5. 5. From the Remote Desktop Window just opened on C, connect to D using the third Remote Desktop.
6. 6. To make it worse, we actually used net meeting for screen sharing and so I was connected to another Desktop from D.

Microsoft just launched its “I’m” campaign by hosting it at im.live.com. Coincidence or not, IM also stands for Instant Messenger, so whether they want to brain wash people’s understanding on “IM” is a question.

What’s “I’m”?

It might sounds naive but all you need to do to join “I’m” is by adding special text code in your Windows Live Messenger display name, to have a tiny icon like the one the right appear in your name. A few text codes are available on the campaign homepage, but there are still some other “secret codes” that still works but not shown in the homepage. Following are the official ones:

How does adding a text code help out charities?

This icon trick only works on Windows Live Messenger 8.1, so to spread the idea around means persuading your friends to update/switch to version 8.1. It is through this that the “I’m” initiative can save advertisement fees and use that portion of money to donate to the organizations. And it also help promote the organizations at the meantime too since users usually will do a bit of investigation to decide which organizations they will support by adding specific text codes representing them.

How is it going?

So far I’ve had about 11 contacts added “I’m” code in their names, and that’s been just a few days. But how would that go. At this point it might be cool to add something others don’t know of yet in your name. But as time goes along, many people will start to leave out the text code. How would the initiative keep this up, is a question for them.

FON ARRIVED!!! More coverage soon!!!!

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