Linux Desktop Hacks

214

|

Chapter 8, Desktop Programs

#69 Play Restricted Media Formats

HACK

Applications

OK, so now you should have a working connection to the office VPN server

(and the office LAN), so what are you going to do with it? Perhaps the sim-

plest thing to do now is to launch your favorite web browser, and point it at

the company’s intranet server. If you have a Microsoft Exchange server, try

pointing your web browser at http://mailserver/exchange, where mailserver is

the actual name of your Exchange server. Then you should be able to log in

with your username and password and access your email. Alternatively, you

can set up the email client on your Linux machine to pull mail from your

corporate mail server, or you can access your work machine via RDP if it is a

Windows XP desktop, or VNC if it is anything else

[Hack #30]. Basically, once

you have a VPN connection to your corporate network, you can do any-

thing you would do at work, just a little more slowly.

It is important to remember that all packets passing over the VPN are

encrypted, which introduces a bit of latency. This does not normally present

a problem with most applications—e.g., web, email, file transfers. Some

applications, such as Voice over IP, will be affected by this latency and will

require careful tuning to operate successfully.

—Ron Wellsted

HACK

#69

Play Restricted Media Formats Hack #69

For licensing reasons, not all distributions come