Router Question

Greetings all!

So I had this idea - I put wireless routers on my machines to allow access to the programming ports on the hardware via ethernet from my laptop.

Then my boss posed the question - could this be adapted to allow access from a tablet, like an Ipad?

What went through my mind was using a headless embedded XP setup with the programming software on board in place of the router, then using remote access software like VNC to reach the embedded PC.

This would be really great for the maintenance guys, and we all get new Ipads

I can't be the first person to have thought of this, so I wanted to ask if anyone had recommendations for the embedded PC router?

Thanks,

TM

First you don't want xp embedded you want the standard OS because you can have issues with some automation software titles on embedded os so use a small pc like this http://www.stealth.com/littlepc.htm with a standard OS. At this point you may want to strongly consider windows 7 though over xp.

Second you could use the pc's wifi card and with a little doftware make it a AP instead of a client but I would just get a good industrail wifi ap that is going to give you good coverage around the machine like this http://www.stealth.com/littlepc.htm

Third you can use VNC from the IPad to the PC but RDP will run faster than VNC and give better response. We do this on almost all out machine but we are remoting into VM Ware VSphere servers on each line which run VM's of the clients and servers and we use thin cliens through thin manager http://www.thinmanager.com/ to give operator access to the VM's.

Nice! You run these headless?

The servers yes. There are thin clients and 20 inch touch screens for operator use but they are just serving up a FT View SE client.