LogMeIn Free: It could be my application of the year
I've been meaning to try LogMeInFree, a program/service that allows you to access a Windows (and now Mac) box from a remote location through a Web browser.
It's like GoToMyPC but with the promise of being free. Forever, presumably.
I tried it out, and it works.
So far, I've controlled one XP machine via Firefox on a Ubuntu-equipped laptop.
Seamless is the word I'm looking for.
What prompted me to finally try LogMeIn Free? Two recent ZDNet blog posts:
by Dana Blankenhorn
by Zack Whittaker
Dana's article in particular got me thinking that programs like LogMeIn are the perfect way to leverage our Linux machines into doing the few dirty tasks that we must use our Windows boxes for. In my case, it's a few apps that a) run only in Windows and b) for which I don't have the luxury of possessing the install discs so I can try them under WINE or in a virtual machine (assuming I could even get a virtual machine to work and to then run Windows; i.e. it looks too damn hard).
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Steven Rosenberg aims to learn what he does not know. He writes about it here.
Steven Rosenberg aims to learn what he does not know. He writes about it here.
I have been enjoying Logmein as well, pretty much the only thing it can't do is audio, and thats not a really big issue. Services like this will make netbooks all the more attractive, as this makes a lot of the disadvantages of the platform irrelavent. One problem I have come across, I could not get Chrome to work with it, which isn't that big of a deal because I use both Firefox and Opera which do, but something to think about if someone is planning on switching browsers. I'm sure Chrome will eventually work with it, but in its current Beta something is screwed up with the Java implementation.
One note, to get this working under Linux, i.e, use Logmein to have remote access to your linux machine, it doesnt work out of the box. Google search it and you will come across some interesting tweaks to get this working however. I'm interested to get my mac on there as well.
While using LogMeIn, I didn't try Chrome, which I did use quite a bit this week before going back to Firefox and Opera. I have one online app I use that locks out Firefox and Safari and tells you to use IE but, for some reason, lets Opera through, so that's what I use most these days.
All this talk about Opera -- and I'm as responsible as anyone for hyping it -- has taken the spotlight off of Firefox 3, which is a phenomenal browser in its own right.
My one problem these days, and curiously (or not so much), it's with Google. I waited a long time for Google Docs to get Gears functionality for offline use. The problem is that it's spotty in terms of whether it'll work or not, lose the database or not, and when it does work, it is so slow that I've pretty much gone back to using OpenOffice and text editors for writing offline. Google Docs is superb online, but the offline function just isn't ready for real work.
I'm hoping that Chrome will improve the situation, but since I only use one Windows PC, and one that is always online, I'll have to wait for a Linux version of Chrome to see if there are any improvements.
But LogMeIn is amazing. It takes all the nerdwork out of remote operation of a PC, and it's surprisingly fast, too.
LogMeIn is an awesome tool, but the free version is limited in terms of functionality. I've recently signedup for Techinline Remote Desktop (www.techinline.com) which is not free, but is a fraction of what these other products charge per month, and they have a pay as you go plan as well. I like the simplicity of their service, since nobody has to install anything. All the remote user has to do is get a number from a webpage, tell you the number and once you enter it on your end, that's the connection right there. From what I've seen, that's as easy as it gets
LogMeIn Free does everything I need, and you can't beat free.