This document addresses frequently asked questions you may have about Teleffect. If your question is not answered here, and is not adequately addressed in the User's Guide, please send email to feedback@electricarc.com so that we can revise the next version of the FAQ to answer your questions.
System Requirements
Network Requirements
Licensing Teleffect
Installing/Uninstalling Teleffect
Configuring Teleffect
Using Teleffect
Security
Troubleshooting and Getting Help
Company
You can find the latest version of the FAQ and all documentation on the Electric Arc LLC website at http://www.electricarc.com/support. If you received Teleffect through a hardware vendor, check their support website as well, as they may have additional information pertinent to your configuration.
Teleffect is a shared-desktop productivity tool by Electric Arc. Teleffect allows you to share a single mouse and keyboard between multiple computers. Teleffect also you to cut and paste text between different computers.
The idea for sharing a single mouse and keyboard among multiple computers was inspired by Silicon Graphics' network dual head server for X Windows. When the founders of Electric Arc LLC began developing cross platform software, they quickly realized that having more than one keyboard and mouse on their desks was problematic. By extending the concept behind nds to allow sharing among heterogenous computers, they were able to free up more space on their desks, use their single ergonomic keyboard on multiple machines, and switch smoothly between their machines without disrupting their work.
Teleffect 1.0 runs on Windows NT® 4.0 with Service Pack 3 and IRIX® 6.x. See the User's Guide for details.
We expect to support more operating systems in the near future. Windows 9x® support, as well as support for other Unix platforms will be available in the next release. Check our website at http://www.electricarc.com/ for more information, or subscribe to our announcement list.
Teleffect will work on many Windows NT® notebook computers, but there are a number of systems that have problems due to their hardware configurations. In particular, if you have a Synaptics® Touchpad (and its associated drivers), your mouse and keyboard sharing will be degraded (you will not be able to remotely send Ctrl-Alt-Delete). With some hardware configurations, users have reported complete incompatiblity. Please report any such incompatibilites to feedback@electricarc.com so that we can support your configuration in future releases.
Also, if you have power saving enabled, you will not be able to wake up your machine with a remote keyboard if your machine goes to sleep. Use the laptop keyboard to wake up the computer.
No. You can run any operating system for which Teleffect provides support.
Teleffect is currently only available in English. International support will be provided in a future release.
Teleffect will support normal pointer and keyboards devices. If your device masquerades as normal pointer or keyboard, Teleffect may support it. For instance, USB pointers and keyboards are not supported by Teleffect except on certain systems where the hardware manufacturer has made them appear to be normal pointer and keyboard devices.
If you are unsure if your device is supported, please download and try Teleffect using a free evaluation license. If your device turns out to not be supported, please let us know.
Yes. All the computers using Teleffect must be able to contact one another over a network.
Your computers must be connected using a TCP/IP network. Future versions of Teleffect may provide support for other network protocols.
The load on the network is minimal. When you are rapidly moving the mouse, which is the most network intensive task, Teleffect transmits only about 1.5kb/sec. On a standard 10Mbit Ethernet connection, this is unnoticable.
The network name can be found in different locations on each platform. On Unix machines, you can type 'hostname'. On Windows®, you go to Start->Settings->Control Panel->Network->Protocols, select TCP/IP and click Properties. Then go to the DNS tab to find the Hostname field.
An IP address is a number of the format xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx, which uniquely identifies your machine to other machines on your network. An example of IP address is 198.29.85.103. Your computer's network name is an alias for its IP address. Teleffect may require you to use your computer's IP address if your computer's network name cannot be automatically converted to and IP address by your operating system.
A Teleffect System consists of a single Teleffect Master computer and any number of Teleffect Slaves. Only the Teleffect Master computer needs to be licensed. If your hardware vendor has pre-licensed Teleffect, you will not need to enter a license when using this computer as your Teleffect Master. Otherwise, you will need to purchase a license from Electric Arc. Please visit our website at http://www.electricarc.com for more information.
Yes. Teleffect will run free of charge for thirty days. During installation, select the "30-day free evaluation" license option. Teleffect will operate normally during this period, but will occasionally remind you to upgrade to a full license.
When your free evaluation license expires, you will still be able to use Teleffect, but the frequency of purchase reminders will become rather intrusive. You can buy a permanent license from Electric Arc at www.electricarc.com.
As a general rule, Electric Arc does not provide extensions to the evaluation license period. If you have special circumstances that prevented you from finishing your evaluation in the 30 day period provided, contact Electric Arc at sales@electricarc.com.
You may purchase a license to Teleffect from our website at www.electricarc.com. Also, you may contact us through email at sales@electricarc.com.
Teleffect is priced for personal use. Please consult our website at www.electricarc.com for the latest pricing.
Yes. Volume discount information is available from our website at www.electricarc.com.
To bundle Teleffect with your product, please contact Electric Arc sales at sales@electricarc.com for more information. Bundling discounts are also available.
Electric Arc provides discounts to qualified educational institutions. Please email sales@electricarc.com for more information.
In order to install Teleffect, you must download the appropriate installer for your operating system from our website at www.electricarc.com/downloads. Please read the User's Guide for step by step installation and configuration instructions.
You will need Administrator privileges to uninstall Teleffect. Open Add/Remove Programs from the Control Panel. Select "Teleffect by Electric Arc" and click the "Add/Remove" button. You will be prompted for confirmation, and will have to reboot to complete uninstallation. If you are uninstalling Teleffect because you are unhappy with the product, please let us know why by sending email to feedback@electricarc.com.
Launch the Software Manager from the System menu of the Toolchest. Enter the root password, if necessary. To uninstall, select the Managed Installed Software option, check the box next to "Teleffect by Electric Arc" in the list, and click Start. You must reboot to complete uninstallation. If you are uninstalling Teleffect because you are unhappy with the product, please let us know why by sending email to feedback@electricarc.com.
If your computer already has Teleffect installed, you only need to configure it for use. Launch the Teleffect configuration tool from the Control Panel on Windows® or from the Desktop->Customize menu on IRIX®. Consult the User's Guide for step-by-step instructions on configuration.
If you changed the name of your Teleffect Master, you will need to reconfigure all of the Teleffect Slave machines so that they know the new name of your Master. If you changed the name of one of your Teleffect Slaves, you will need to update the Teleffect Master so that it knows the new name of your slave and its position relative to the other computers in the system. Consult the User's Guide for details on configuration.
To add a new slave, you must configure the slave with the name of your current Teleffect Master. You must also reconfigure the Teleffect Master so that it knows the name and position of your new Teleffect slave relative to the other computers in the system. Consult the User's Guide for details on configuration.
You must reconfigure each slave computer in your Teleffect System with the name of the new Teleffect Master, and you must configure the new Teleffect Master to know the name and spatial relationship between all the computers in your system. Consult the User's Guide for details on configuraton.
You may control as many slave computers as you like from a single Teleffect Master, provided that each slave is controlled by exactly one Teleffect Master.
Ypu cannot currently use the configuration tool to configure Teleffect to control more than three computers at once. Please see the "Advanced Settings" section of the User's Guide for information on editing the configuration files by hand.
To move the mouse between screens, move the pointer off the edge of the current screen nearest to the screen you want to move to. The pointer will disappear from the current screen and reappear on edge of the target screen nearest to the screen you just left.
Teleffect uses the native cut and paste semantic of each platform. Thus, on Windows® you can use the Cut/Copy/Paste commands under the Edit menu. On Unix, sweep selection of text copies the text to the clipboard, and the middle mouse button pastes text in the current pointer position. To copy from one computer to another, simply use the platform specific copy semantic on the source computer, move the mouse to the target, and use the platform specific paste semantic.
There is essentially no limit on the amount of text you can cut-and-paste. However, as the text you place on the shared clipboard has to be copied from one machine to another, copying large amounts of text can cause a noticable delay in switching the pointer between screens. Also, enabling security features may reduce the amount of text you can copy without noticable delay.
The shared clipboard can be disabled from the Configuration Tool. See the "Configuration" section of the User's Guide for details.
If you choose to use Teleffect without security enabled, your keystrokes and mouse motions will be sent across the network "in the clear". This means that a resourceful individual could monitor all the network communications between your machines to reconstruct what you have typed. In most work environments this is not a serious threat, but if you use Teleffect on machines connected directly to the Internet, you may want to enable security.
Teleffect provides a mode in which all information sent by Teleffect between the computers in the System is encrypted with the DES encryption algorithm using a shared password. This prevents any outsider from easily eavesdropping on your keystrokes by monitoring network traffic. In this mode, Teleffect also authenticates all connections, making it difficult for another user to masquerade as one of the computers in your Teleffect system. Please see the "Security" section of the User's Guide for details.
Password based security is enabled via the Configuration Tool. Each computer in the Teleffect System must have the same security settings. Thus, security must be on or off everywhere, and the same password must be entered by hand on each computer in the Teleffect System.
With security enabled, you are provided some degree of confidentiality. However, no system operating over a network is completely safe from attack, and so you should exercise caution in copying sensitive information to other machines using Teleffect.
No. Teleffect is not suitable for use in hazardous materials environments.
No. Under no circumstances should you be sending nuclear missile launch codes anywhere, even with encryption enabled.
Yes. Teleffect is a valuable productivity tool
If you are having trouble using Teleffect, please consult the Troubleshooting Guide. It has answers to many frequently encountered problems. If, after consulting the Troubleshooting Guide and User's Guide, you are unable to solve your problem, please contact your Teleffect vendor. If you purchased Teleffect directly from Electric Arc, please visit our support website at www.electricarc.com/support.
You may need to configure Teleffect to work with your environment. Consult the "Configuration" section of the User's Guide for details.
Teleffect implements a shared clipboard that uses platform specific cut and paste semantics on each platform. Under X Windows, text is placed on the clipboard when you select it. Thus, this newly selected text will replace any previously copied text in the clipboard.
Teleffect implements a shared clipboard that uses platform specific cut and paste semantics on each platform. Under X Windows, selection indicates that the text is on the clipboard, and so when you copy text on another computer in your Teleffect System, this changes the clipboard on the X Windows machine, clearing the current selection.
When you have a large amount of text on the clipboard, it can take a noticable amount of time to change screens as this text needs to be sent from one computer to another. Reduce the amount of text on the clipboard by selecting smaller chunks or clearing the clipboard after use. Also, disabling security can reduce the delay when changing screens when a large amount of text is on the clipboard.
If you are using a X Windows machine as your master, and you have already switch the meaning of Control and CapsLock in the xmodmap, you do not need to use Ctrl2Cap on the Windows® slave machines. If you do use Ctrl2Cap anyway, it will swap the meaning of the keys twice, confusing applications.
When you use Teleffect between two X Windows machines, it is important that each machine have the same xmodmap entries. Check that this is the case by running 'xmodmap' on each machine, and adjusting entries on each client to match those of the server.
Electric Arc LLC was formed in 1998 by Adam Feder and Richard Lee to build cross-platform utility software for the changing shape of modern computing. Please visit our website at http://www.electricarc.com/ for information on our current product offerings and contact info.
We always welcome customer feedback. If you have any suggestions, praise, or complaints, please send us email at feedback@electricarc.com.
You can visit our website at www.electricarc.com to find out about future product offerings. Also, you may subscribe to our product mailing list by sending email to announce-request@electricarc.com with the word "subscribe" in the body of the message.