Introduction
I remember the first time I used a remote screen-sharing program. Working from my desktop computer, I accessed a system that was in a server room but which had no monitor attached. It was magical. I could work with the server just as if I were directly connected with a keyboard and mouse, using its programs and manipulating objects on its desktop, but I didn't need to sit in the server room and have the inconvenient extra hardware attached to the server.
That sense of wonder still pervades me when I use screen sharing 18 years later. Instead of using a 10 Mbps (fast!) local Ethernet network or 2,400 bps dial-up software to make the connection, I use broadband feeds over the Internet to reach computers across town, 15 miles away, and ...