By Monte Ferguson Our July meeting focused on Tools for the Telecommuter. Telecommuting
used to refer to traveling businessmen/women. Today, thanks to iPhones
and laptops fall into “telecommuter’ status. We also often find
ourselves switching between devices.
It can lead to confusion. Where did I save the email or file? What if
you forget something at work or on another device? Some of us also get
called on to do tech support for family or friends. Wouldn’t it be nice
to be able to SEE what was going on on the other persons screen? Many of
us would also like to be able to do is share our files with family or
coworkers, wherever they may be.
The good news it that there are free tools out there that address these
needs. We looked at two products: LogMeIn and Dropbox.
LogMeIn addresses the need of being able to see, and control a remote
computer. Handy if you are called upon to troubleshoot someone’s
computer problems. It can also come in handy when you have a file or
need to check on something that’s only found on a remote computer.
First off LogMeIn is free. You do have to sign up for a free account,
where your email address is your user name. You then need to download
their free software onto any computer that you wish to contact and
control. Yes, you can have more than one computer listed that you can
access. LogMeIn is handy because it works through firewalls. You can
also use LogMeIn to control a Mac from a PC or vice versa.
You gain access to a remote computer you have setup via your browser.
Log into your account, choose the computer you want to control, and then
click on the remote control button. Then wait a bit for the screen to
load. (TIP: Simplifying the desktop background to a single color and
dropping screen resolution drops the amount of data that has to be
transmitted. This means quicker screen refreshes.)
The only drawback is that screen refreshes lag. So be patient. The lag
is not bad at all. Of course you need a fast internet connection to make
this work well. But it really comes in handy. Monte showed how you can
take over the remote computer and open files, send email, etc. LogMeIn
does offer paid for services but for many the free service will be all
you need.
LogMeIn solves the problem of seeing and controlling a remote computer.
The other common issue for telecommuters is making sure they have all of
their essential files wherever they go. A new service called Drop Box
fills that need.
Think of Drop Box as iDisk if it really worked well. Drop Box, which is
free for the first 2GB of storage, lets you store files in the “Cloud”.
After you setup your free account, and download their software to all of
your computers, you can access any file you share anywhere. Changes you
make to files are saved up to Drop Box’s servers and instantly sent to
connected computers, both Mac and PC. Even if you change a file, but
aren’t on the internet, you’re covered. The next time you connect Drop
Box will synchronize your changes. Files that have been synchronized
have a green check mark next to them. Files in process of being updated
have a blue circling arrow icon.
Of course all of your computers have to have the program, or an
equivalent, that can open the file. You can even access your file over
the web.
Dropbox provides an option for collaboration. There is a shared folder.
Anything that is in Shared can be opened by other Dropbox users you’ve
granted access. But they can only access things in your Shared folder.
You can also use Dropbox to share files with folks who don’t use
Dropbox. You place a file in the Public folder. Right click, or control
click, on the file, and you’ll be given an option for a link to send to
others.
Most impressive is the built in versioning support. That means you can
go back in time to any point, since you uploaded the file to Dropbox.
Monte said he’s had to use this at a couple of points. It worked
flawlessly.
The combination of these two products, and their affordable price point,
means that anyone can access their important data from anywhere. Best of
all both of these programs just work. Posted: Monday, September 21st, 2009 | 
