Recently in LogMeIn Free Category

I booted the Toshiba 1100-S101 with Ubuntu 8.04 for the first time in 25 days, according to the Update Manager. Or at least it was 25 days since I updated the install.

Either way, I've been running a nearly carbon copy of this laptop with OpenBSD 4.4, lately with the Xfce 4.4 desktop environment, and I'd gotten quite used to it. While I still had only Flash Player 7 through the Opera browser in OpenBSD, I did have the Java runtime installed, so I thought ... thought I could use all the Web-based applications I need to use that require Java. Thought.

Here I am, 10 p.m., working at home, and I discover that LogMeIn just doesn't like OpenBSD. Even in Linux, when you don't have Java you can still use LogMeIn. It's way, way, way better with Java, which is why I installed Java both in Ubuntu 8.04 and OpenBSD 4.4. My other Java-based applet I use, a fairly simple uploading mechanism (for which I could use FTP but the company I'm dealing with has it hooked up so images take forever to process when you FTP them but process immediately when you use the Java app ... so you can guess which one I've begrudgingly turned to), and that works fine with the Java in OpenBSD as well as in Ubuntu.

But LogMeIn ... oh, LogMeIn ... you piss me off. I set up, tested and used Java in Ubuntu 8.04 to control a remote Windows desktop with LogMeIn Free (and I'm announcing right here, right now, if I can get LogMeIn to work in OpenBSD, I will stop being a freeloader and buy your damn service ... but I'm not opening up my wallet just yet.

Anyhow, I'm merrily doing my work on the OpenBSD Toshiba laptop when I fire up LogMeIn in Firefox. I try to bring up my remote machine and I get a blank screen. It appears from my feeble attempts at figuring out the problem that LogMeIn is trying to use ActiveX even though I'm not running it on a Windows box or using Internet Explorer. LogMeIn doesn't need ActiveX. It doesn't even need Java (though, as I say, it's damn near unusable without it). Don't get me wrong, it works great from Windows box to Windows box with ActiveX. It's nearly as seamless with Java, and thus I have Java — with the express purpose being the enjoyment of said seamlessness.

But I had no LogMeIn. So I did my work, doing everything as best as I could. Then I booted into the Windows XP partition on my OpenBSD laptop. Yep, it came with Windows loaded, and I just shrunk the NTFS partition and slapped OpenBSD 4.4 on the newly freed half of the hard drive (and yes, dividing a 20 GB drive between XP and OpenBSD doesn't exactly give you a ton of room in either OS).

My XP partition even has Service Pack 3 and IE7. So I fired up IE, allowed it to install ActiveX (is it ActivX or ActiveX — 'e' or 'no e' ... I have no idea).

LogMeIn ran great in XP, I did my thing, turned off the laptop and went to bed at midnight.

The next day, which is right now, I pulled out the Ubuntu 8.04 Toshiba, cranked it on and tried out LogMeIn. Works great in Ubuntu with Java.

For the Ubuntu update, wait for the next entry ...

I decided to get deeper into Puppy 4.1.2 on my Toshiba Satellite 1100-S101 laptop.

I'm always looking for platforms on which I can do all my Daily News-related work, which means I need the Java runtime and Flash video.

Well, there is a Java package for Puppy. I'm surprised Java isn't part of the base install, but it appears not. I installed the package, and I even brought in the Opera Web browser to augment Seamonkey.

Both browsers are performing well, but for some reason Flash doesn't work in either. I distinctly remember Flash working in all of the Puppy 2 and 3 releases I've used previously, and now I'm left wondering what happened.

Also, Java did NOT work in either browser, so easy use of the LogMeIn remote-desktop service is not something happening in Puppy. I'm getting to the point where I'll need to bit the proverbial bullet and install Java from source in OpenBSD on this laptop so I can get that functionality. I can live without Flash (and the Flash I do have in i386 OpenBSD via Opera is marginal at best; it works in YouTube but not in Brightcove). I can sort of live without Java.

But it's better for the work that I do to have both of these things working well.

Also, I was surprised to see not Pidgin or Gaim as the IM client in Puppy but something I'd never heard of. Pidgin is available as a package, so that's not such a problem.

The end result is that while Puppy 4.1.2. runs quite well at first blush, I need to look closer at why I was so unsuccessful at getting Flash and Java to work. It should be easier than this.

And while Flash remains somewhat of a problem in OpenBSD (I probably need to be running an up-to-date Linux such as Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, Slackware, Zenwalk ... take your pick) I'll probably stick with it for the time being as my primary OS.

What role does the Internet Explorer Web browser play in your life? In recent days, new vulnerabilities in the flagship Windows browser have come to light.

Alas, the fix is in, but pundits continue to suggest that running IE is just asking for trouble.

I'm not ready to say IE is such a security risk that instead browsing the Web with Firefox, Google's new Chrome, the super-quick Opera or even Apple's cross-platform Safari is enough to save your digital bacon.

Nope, it's all about what you do, where you go and what computing platform you choose to do it with.

The fast is that i386-based Windows PCs continue to be the most vulnerable platforms out there because of both their ubiquity and relative lack of built-in security when compared to Macintosh OS X and the vast number of Unix-like OSes out there (including Linux, the BSDs and Sun's offerings).

If you make a habit of downloading executable files (they're easy to spot in Windows because they end in .exe) without being absolutely sure they're totally legitimate and then double-clicking on them, bad things may very well happen.

Don't get me wrong. Searching for free software for Windows computers is something I do, too. Not often, but I do it. That's how I found some of my very favorite applications on any platform, including the terrific image viewer/editor IrfanView, the fast AbiWord word processor and Notepad++, the best Windows-native text editor ever.

I've already repeated myself enough about the Flashplugin-nonfree being taken out of Debian Etch and relegated to Debian Backports. and I've decided NOT to install it for the time being mostly because a) I don't really need it and b) Flash runs like crap on this rig (blame the ECS EVEm motherboard).

But I do need Java. Since Java is not a totally free program, you must agree to the licensing terms before the plugin for Iceweasel/Firefox will install. And with that in mind, it's not in Debian's default "free" repositories.

To get Java, first edit /etc/apt/sources.list. Use su to root or sudo (and if you don't have sudo set up, now is a good time to do it).

Here's how to do it using sudo with the Gedit text editor (substitute your favorite editor for Gedit, and ignore the word sudo if you used su to root):

$ sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list &

Once you're in /etc/apt/sources.list, change these lines to include the contrib and non-free repositories:

deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ etch main contrib non-free
deb-src http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ etch main contrib non-free
deb http://security.debian.org/ etch/updates main contrib non-free
deb-src http://security.debian.org/ etch/updates main contrib non-free

Then save and close /etc/apt/sources.list.

While you still have the terminal window open, update your package lists:

$ sudo aptitude update

If you want to stay in the terminal, do this to add Java:

$ sudo aptitude install sun-java5-plugin

Or use the Synaptic Package Manager. Instead of using aptitude to update your package lists, after making your changes in /etc/apt/sources.list, start with Synaptic and click Reload. Then search for the Sun-java5-plugin package and add it that way. Even though I'm a big fan of using aptitude instead of apt at the command line, if I'm in a graphical environment I use Synaptic more often than not.

Then close and restart the Iceweasel browser. You should have Java. To check it, I learned from TomCort.com that you can try to play the Java game Jpong. If it works, you have Java.

I needed Java for a variety of things, but the one that prompted me to actually get it was LogMeIn. Without ActiveX (in IE) or Java (in everything not IE), you can control a Windows or Mac OS X computer remotely via "any" Web browser (and do it free with LogMeIn Free), but you can't actually type directly in an application window without ActiveX or Java installed. And instead of LogMeIn actually prompting me about this omission, I was reduced to typing into a little "Send Keys" window to get actual screen input.

I can't imagine that LogMeIn cares at all about the non-Windows and -Mac market. I get that, since a product to remotely control a Unix-like desktop would be a bit redundant with X over SSH and other technologies that are easy to use in a GNU/Linux or BSD environment.

But in my case, in which I'm using the browsers in Linux and OpenBSD to control a remote Windows XP desktop, they need to make it clear to users that unless you have a Java-equipped browser, your experience is going to be very frustrating until you add the required software.

Later: After adding the contrib and non-free repositories, installing the sun-java5-plugin, restarting Iceweasel and navigating to http://logmein.com, I signed in to my account.

After the wait for Java to get going, I indeed was able to start a remote session from my Debian Etch box to my Windows XP box and actually use my keyboard to type into application windows on the remote host (is that what you call it?).

Now I have to add Java to the rest of my GNU/Linux installations.

Java is even available for OpenBSD, at least for i386 and AMD64. I believe you have to add the entire developers kit to get the runtime. I've seen more than a few messages on the OpenBSD mailing lists from Java developers, so it's not an unknown platform for that sort of programming.

There used to be a huge rant here about how Flash only runs on PowerPC chips if you are using Mac's OS 9 or OS X and not in any Linux or BSD. I'm not quite sure what the status is regarding Java on Linux/PowerPC. It seems a bit murky, and I'm looking into it. A cursory Google search indicates that it is available, although not as an actively developed technology.

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:

Zack Whittaker's iGeneration blog has quickly become a must-read. His post on The Killer Apps of Academia is well worth bookmarking for future reference.

He mentions quite a few apps I use every day, from the obvious (Firefox, OpenOffice) to the less-so (Notepad++, Audacity).

Among the ones I hadn't heard of but want to try immediately are LogMeIn Free, which, if the description is correct, is like GoToMyPC, letting you control a Windows PC from a remote location, but without the costs involved. There is a "Pro" version with more features, but the fact that there even is a free version warms my cockles considerably.