Getting Thin
Wyse Winterm can help you shed those extra pounds.
- By James Carrion
- 01/01/2003
The holidays have come and gone. If you enjoy them as much as I do, you’re
probably sitting in front of your computer, your clothes a little tighter
than just a few months ago, and writing New Year’s resolutions that seem
oddly familiar. Well, this month I look at a product that will help you
with one common goal—slimming down. No, not your body. I’m talking about
thinning down your desktop computer with the Wyse Winterm Windows-Based
Terminal.
Wyse Winterm is a self-contained, terminal-emulation hardware appliance
that provides, over the LAN or via remote terminal, access to Citrix MetaFrame
and Microsoft Terminal Services. In addition, it can also serve as a virtual
terminal for many other environments (3270, 5250 and so on) or can be
used as an Internet access appliance in kiosk mode.
The device is about the size of a paperback book but is packed with a
parallel port, two serial ports, three USB ports and a fast Ethernet port.
Setup entails plugging in a mouse, keyboard and monitor and booting it
into Windows CE. Configuring the device is extremely simple using the
Windows Control Panel. You can configure touch-screen monitors, smart
cards, modems and VPNs, as well as upgrade the device’s firmware through
FTP. The device I evaluated has 32MB of Flash memory and 64MB of RAM,
and the video resolution can be set up to 1024x768. You can also configure
power-saving options such as turning off the monitor after a period of
inactivity. Support for 802.11b is available as an add-on.
The Wyse Winterm can be configured with a static IP address or via DHCP.
You can set it up to use a Proxy server for Internet access, and it has
a built-in SNTP client so the internal clock can be synchronized with
an external time source. The device can also be managed remotely via SNMP
or Wyse’s Rapport management software. If hardware maintenance is a concern,
keep in mind that the Wyse Winterm is convection-cooled and has no moving
parts.
Creating a terminal or Internet session is simple with the Winterm’s
Connection Manager (see figure). It comes preconfigured with a default
ICA and RDP connection, which you can edit, or you can choose to create
your own connections. The device supports Citrix MetaFrame load balancing
and Secure ICA 6.2 and ICA remote dialup. I had no problems connecting
to Windows 2000/XP/.NET Terminal Services. The Wyse Winterm can also be
configured as an Internet kiosk using Internet Explorer as the browser,
and you can prevent kiosk users from navigating outside of a specific
Web space or from searching the Internet. If a kiosk user powers off the
device, you can configure the Wyse Winterm to automatically boot into
a specific connection. Security can be configured on a per-user basis,
with users granted or denied permissions to use a specific protocol (for
example, user Joe can be allowed to use RDP but not ICA).
 |
| You can launch an ICA or RDP session from the Wyse
Connection Manager or create your own custom sessions. |
If you work in a MetaFrame or Terminal Services environment, you may
want to look at the Wyse Winterm for your thin-client needs. It’s a versatile
appliance that comes chock-full of the essential hardware and emulation
software support to meet basically any virtual terminal scenario, and
it’s a great appliance to use for Internet kiosks. It’s extremely easy
to configure and, with no moving parts, maintenance should be minimal.
Keep in mind, though, that if lugging heavy computers around is all the
exercise that you get during the day, you might need to get yourself a
gym membership.
About the Author
James Carrion, MCM R2 Directory, MCITP, MCSE, MCT, CCNA, CISSP has worked as a computer consultant and technical instructor for the past 16 years. He’s the owner of and principal instructor for MountainView Systems, LLC, which specializes in accelerated Microsoft Certification training.