I’ve used Netopia’s Timbuktu for almost 10-years to remotely control both Macs and PCs. It wasn’t perfect, but it worked well enough, was easy to set-up, and delivered decent performance. Over the years, the program has started to show its age and updates have been far and few between. The last update, over a year ago, did little more than add Skype connections. Yet they wanted you to pay for the update.

I first tried VNC when I was trying to get MythTV running. It worked, but much like everything related to that install it wasn’t perfect. Lately Timbuktu has been crashing and causing problems. My BeyondTV box is headless, so I HAVE to have a reliable way to control the machine. So I gave VNC another shot.

I uninstalled Timbuktu a few minutes later. It just isn’t worth it. VNC does everything Timbuktu was doing for me, but with less of a foot print, better reliability, and it is FREE. Another plus is that it only requires a single port to be opened in a firewall. I couldn’t get Timbuktu to work properly at the office, but I bet I can get VNC working when I try it soon.

So adios Timbuktu. You had a long life, but your time has come.

Update: VNC also allows mouse/trackpad scrolling! I can’t count the number of times I tried to mouse scroll when using Timbuktu and it just sat there unable to do it. What a piece of crap.

Update 2: Did I mention that VNC handles DirectX unlike Timbuktu? Timbuktu would force-quit the BeyondTV interface if it was open because it couldn’t handle it. VNC has no problems with it or MediaPortal.

The more I use VNC, the more I regret having used Timbuktu for so long.