Logmein.com
Here at work we were having this problem where the user is wanting to connect remotely to her computer at work. The user is on an unknown net connect (may have NAT, or may not, may be on wireless or may not) so we had to have it work no matter what connection she was on. At first I setup a ssh tunnel that connected her to her desktop using RealVNC.
That worked just fine until somehow the config for Putty crapped out and left her with all the options I setup “on the fly” erased from the app. With me not wanting to walk the user through the steps to repair it I looked for an easier way.
This is where LogMeIn.com comes in. LogMeIn is a web based (using ActiveX in IE or an extension in Firefox) app that allows you to connect to a remote machine. They have a number of “products” to choose from, as well as a free version. So whats the catch? Well, the free version doesn’t allow for File Transfer nor Guest Invite (Allow friends and colleagues to temporarily view or control your PC.) or File Manager (Securely access, transfer and backup important files and folders.). So if you can live without these 3 things, your golden and can have Free remote access with no problems. Anyhow back to my user, so I when on her machine in the office and installed the software. Then i setup her login and password and made a few quick changes to some things I didn’t think she would be able to set herself. Then I called her up and had her login on their website. 3 mins later she was connected and accessing her apps and email. LogMeIn.com saved the day, and saved me from walking her through all the steps of repairing the botched Putty/RealVNC bs.
Before I started using RealVNC, I was using a program called RemotelyAnywhere that Isaac was using and recommended it. You install the app on your computer, then punch a hole in your router/firewall and then you access your remote machine by remembering your IP address (or using a service like dynDNS to assign your IP a easy to remember hostname). As fun as all that is (and geeky too), I don’t really see the need if you can use a service like LogMeIn.com and work within their restrictions of not being able to do file transfers.
But Jason…. I want to do file transfers too!!! Well, ok.. I was ready for that question and heres my answer.. what you can do is install an app called Hamachi which is a secure file sharing app that you install on the machines you want to have access to (and the machine you want to access from). Then you link them up together by creating a new virtual network, now when you browse each of the machines its as if you were on the same network accessing them via SMB (windows file sharing). Is this all over you head? Well, check out their website and give it a look see. Xinu and I have been using it and it works pretty well. I hear you can use FTP and web services with this too, I haven’t tried but if those work then I’d think that RemoteDesktop may work over it too.. but thats just a guess at this point.
