Productivity Portfolio

My quest started four months ago when I needed access to my home computer from a client site. One challenge of doing work at another company is staying away from the system administrators. These folks have enough work to do without my having to ask them to change port or security settings. I also wanted a solution that was secure and easy to set up. I've had encounters with some VPN instructions that make hardware manuals written in Chinese look easy.

Surprisingly, there were more solutions available than I expected. The list was narrowed though as I started testing at home between my desktop and notebook. The two biggest problems I experienced were products that kept ports open or were cumbersome to install or use. There was another factor, which was cost, as I preferred not to buy a product or subscription if it wasn't needed.

My search ended with a service called LogMeIn by 3AMlabs. The company was started in 2004, but the folks behind it have been involved with RemotelyAnywhere since 1999. Corporate users who need secure connection better know this product.

The installation was easy, but you need to have administrative privileges. I first had to set up an account with LogMeIn. Once that was done, I downloaded a small application that resides on my desktop. This application needs to be running whenever you want to make a remote connection. I then checked the support site for my firewall settings, which were referenced in a FAQ. I was done in about 10 minutes.

The next part was to connect to my desktop remotely with my notebook. You can connect remotely using Windows, Linux or Pocket PCs. I opened my browser and logged into my account. The service displayed an icon for my desktop machine and I selected connect from the menu. I entered my Windows user name and password. Both Internet Explorer and Firefox presented a security dialog asking if I wanted to download a signed applet from www.remotelyanywhere.com. After a minute or so, my desktop appeared on my notebook in a Firefox window.

The free service has worked well for me. Although I can't do file transfer or remote printing with the free version, it covers just about everything else. I've opened Outlook and emailed items to other computers. I've even been able to copy and paste data from my desktop to my notebook using the transfer facility. And if I was feeling generous, I could grant another user access to my PC.

As expected, the machine doesn't operate as fast as if I were there in person. There is also a correlation between the number of colors to display and speed. This is why I opt for 8 bits. I also prefer to use Full Screen mode as I dislike scrollbars. About the only thing I would like to see in the free version is the capability to right-click the taskbar icon and disable the application. Now, you need to disable the application by opening the LogMeIn helper program.

Clearly, if you need remote access you should try this free service. Even if you need the print and transfer capabilities of the Pro version, the monthly costs are lower than competitive products.