Show me the light!

So, I hear you say, show me the light! And I will. Orb is very simple to setup, all in all it took me around 10 minutes. From that point on, I can access anything on any other internet PC. First of all, you need to download the software that will run on the PC everything you want to access is stored on. You can setup Orb to operate from more than one PC, and then simply use the same login.

Download and set-up 

Click www.orb.com to download the free software. During installation, the software will prompt you to either login or register. Registering is extremely simple and takes about a minute. All you need is a valid email account.

Once Orb is installed, the setup wizard will run automatically. Orb is very easy to setup, and you can even setup Orb to stream your TV Card! So if you have a TV Card, Orb will scan all the channels in (depending how many channels this may take a while) and then when you login from another PC, you can watch any of these channels. However, Orb does not work with Satellite TV Cards, it is really only suitable for Freeview, Analogue and Cable TV Card. Using my Leadtek DTV100T, Orb quickly and hassle free detects all my Freeview channels. Orb then takes the signal from your TV Card, and streams it to your Orb account, allowing you to watch all the channels your TV Card can pick up, from your Orb Account. Just like videos and music, Orb streams the channels through Windows Media Player.

Orb will usually finish the wizard, as it automatically sets up so that your "My Video", "My Music" and "My Documents" folders can be accessed. However, if like me, you store your files in all kinds of places, you can tell Orb to make different folders accessible.

Once you have setup your Home PC to broadcast, you are now ready to access everything remotely. All you need is a Broadband PC (Dial Up is OK for small files, but will not work for streaming or Television and will operate very slowly) and a browser. I suggest using a Mozilla based Browser such as Flock or Firefox.

Start streaming with Orb 

To login to Orb and start streaming your files, go to the www.orb.com website and click the Sign in link. The Orb Homepage loads up with a login box, news headlines and various other titbits. I guess this is Orbs way of welcoming you to your session. Simply login with your username and password, and Orb will begin to load. Everything loads within the browser. Orb will load up a list of all your music and videos, and folders with other files in them depending which folders you set up to be streamed.

Click for larger view

This is how my Orb loads up. On the top left you can see a randomised list of the channels and radio I get through my TV Card. I can simply choose a channel, double click, and it is then streamed to me through Windows Media Player. Fantastic! So if your PC has a TV Card – Orb allows you to watch the channels you get on any PC.

Listen to your music 

To listen to a music track, double click and Orb will open your Media Player. The song is than streamed. The same is done for videos, however for other file types you are asked to download them. This makes it extremely useful if you like the idea of being able to go to Work and access a file you were working on at home – without needing to bother with USB keys.