Have you ever gotten home from work and discovered that you needed a
file from the office? Or worse yet, have you ever gotten to work and
discovered that you forgot to email youself that great game you
downloaded at home last night? We at The
Practical Mac have been there. We feel your pain.
Today we look at some solutions that will help you to make sure that
neither of these scenarios ever happens again.
Remote control products have matured over the years. I remember
first using PCAnywhere over ten years ago, across a dialup connection
at 1200 baud, and thinking that it would have been easier to walk
across town to the other PC, get what I wanted, and walk back. Those
days are gone, and today's products are spiffy solutions to the one
person, computer-in-two-locations problem.
Timbuktu Pro
Timbuktu Pro, available
from Netopia, is king of the hill when it comes to remote control
software. It is fully cross-platform compliant with Mac OS 8.1-9.x as
well as OS X. On the Windows side, it runs on Windows 95 and all
later versions of Windows. You can control Macs from Macs, Macs from
PCs, PCs from PCs and PCs from Macs. Timbuktu encrypts the login
password and dynamically scrambles and encodes all keyboard and mouse
data sent from the guest to the host machine on a per session basis. It
is slick, full-featured, and easy to use. It is also, unfortunately, a
bit pricey. A license for two computers is currently $179.95, and the
licenses can be used on either Macs or PCs. If you want licenses for
only Macs or only PCs, the cost is slightly less.
This is a great program for the business user or even for the home
user who does not mind the price. However, if you are on a budget, read
on.
VNC
In the proud tradition of The Practical Mac, we are elated to let
our readers know that there is a fully cross-platform solution
availably at a lower price: free. VNC, which stands for Virtual Network
Computing, is availabe as a free download from AT & T Research, United
Kingdom. As if being free were not enough, VNC runs on Mac, Windows,
Linux, Sun Solaris, and various flavors of Unix. You can control a
computer running any supported OS from a computer running
any supported OS. For instance, I can control my Sun box from my
Mac and vice-versa.
VNC doesn't have as many features as Timbuktu. You can't easily
transfer files between machines or do remote printing, but VNC should
handle the remote control needs of 95% of users. We have it installed
on every computer in our organization. It is a life-saver when it comes
to remote troubleshooting. Beware, though, security is only
rudimentary. I would not advise using it across the public
Internet.
GoToMyPC
GoToMyPC is a relative
newcomer to the remote control arena. GoToMyPC works a little
differently. All connections are made through GoToMyPC's central
servers on the Internet. You download the program to your PC and, once
installed, you can control your PC from virtually any Java-compliant
Web browser with an Internet connection. Currently, GoToMyPC only
supports Windows hosts. Remote control is also supported on Mac, Linux,
and Unix clients.
When the product was first released, it was Windows-only. Within a
few months, they had expanded support on the client side. I have been
in contact with the folks at GoToMyPC for some time, and I am hopeful
that support on the host side will also be expanded eventually.
This service costs $4.95 per month for 2 PCs. Security is impeccable
(of course, since it runs over the public Internet, I would expect it
to be). It fully supports 128-bit encryption. If access on the go is
your need, and you only need to control Windows PCs, this product is
worth looking into. If your host needs include Mac or Linux/Unix
computers, I urge you to email your support for multi-platform hosts to
the folks at GoToMyPC at gotofeedback@expertcity.com.
For better or for worse, you no longer have to be away from the
office when you are "out of the office!"
