Remote PC access vs mi-fi

[patbarton]

After following an earlier post in which members discussed using mi-fi cards, it came to me that probably the biggest problem with mi-fi or any other internet connection that we use away from home, is the bandwidth limit of our respective carriers.

For example, my Virgin Mobile mi-fi is great when I'm close to populated areas and has unlimited bandwidth, but when I exceed a maximum bandwidth usage, they "throttle down" the access speed. Other carriers do the same thing, or they just plain LIMIT your bandwidth.

When you're working on web sites, synching files to remote servers, or whatever, you can eat up that bandwidth quickly. I used NetMeter for a short while, long enough to determine that in a normal month, I would exceed my provider's monthly bandwidth limit in a week, sometimes less. Big files, lots of activity. Everything that comes to me in an e-mail with big attachments gets published to the internet, so files get moved twice!

The other problem is with firewalls and other security protections used by many WiFi providers (like MacDonalds, truck stops, or some CGs). One place I regularly visit refuses to allow me to use port 25 on my SMTP server (which I need to get e-mail), so I have to remember to change the settings whenever I travel. Worse than that are those providers who won't allow you to access certain ports on remote servers, necessary (at least for me) for database updating. This gets me flustered and the work doesn't get done.

One thing I'm testing at the house is GoToMyPC. In fact, I'm using it right now to access my big laptop using my little laptop. The huge advantage of this is that all those big files don't need t be moved to & from my little (travel) laptop at all!

I can download a dozen 1MB image files from a customer (darned customers don't know how to optimize!), work on them in PhotoShop, and publish them to a web site using maybe a few KB of data transfer to & from the travel laptop, while all the big bandwidth is used up at the home laptop! All I'm getting in front of me are echoes of the home laptop's display, so the data transfer is minimized. I don't exceed my data limits, and I can actually get a lower-bandwidth plan from my cell or mi-fi provider.

I've watched a few videos using GTMPC, but I'm not smart enough to know what the travel laptop's display usage is, compared to the actual video file downloaded. So if you're a big video user, this scheme may not do anything for you.

The PC at home needs to stay ON while you're traveling, of course, so I need to make sure my neighbor knows how to turn the laptop back on should it go out for whatever reason. GoToMyPC won't wake up a sleeping PC or power up a turned-off PC. The good news is that the quality of the software has REALLY improved since this genre of software was introduced. I can't see ANY difference between the remote & home screens at all!

ALL THAT said, is anyone else using a program like GoToMyPC to access work programs and files when you're traveling? Care to comment?

[padredw]

Thanks for sharing this valuable experience. As a "not fultimer" I have not used something like this in traveling, but I have been using "TeamViewer 7" to help several of my friends. It allows me to view their display on my display and control their computer. It works really good [to the extent that I can go online with the remote computer--dowload, install, etc.] and is entirely free for personal use. I'm sure I could use it to access my home computer for remote control in the same way, but, as you say, that would mean the home computer would have to be left on--which might lead to other problems.

Anyway, thanks for sharing.

[sapest]

Hi there

Been doing this off & on (no pun intended) for about 15 yrs in a home office/remote office environment. The piece you might want to consider is a remote power switch (see examples here - http://www.remotepowerswitch.com/) that lets you call your home/host device when the power comes back up or you need to restart it. No next door neighbor training needed. You just use the phone call to control what the power 'black box' does. You need to configure the remote software to allow you to login to the host, once restarted. Some host agents will not let you do that. And be sure the host computer will recover from a power cycle in the manner you want it to. You can also connect your ISP's DSL/cable modem (or whatever you use) & router/switch/etc so it can be remotely power cycled. You would want a product with 2 independent power outlets for this.

Its a very nice solution as long as you have the home PC to host.
-Steve

[Phil P]

Hi

I have been using “Logmein” for years to manage my servers remotely. The best advantage is not having the leave a “remote desktop” port open in the firewall.

Phil P

[brenkco]

Pat,
I have a mix of PC's/servers etc at the office and Macs & IOS5 devices at home. I use Logmein to access the office. I tried several including GoToMyPC but settled on Logmein. They have a free version that suits my needs.

Regarding bandwidth caps, I had quite a shock at the Q gathering. All my IOS5 and Macs had all the ICloud services on and 5 days into my billing cycle I had used 90% of my 5 gig limit. At .25/meg charge to go over, I had to unplug the air card and depend on just our phones for the rest of the trip. The phones (AT&T) have an unlimited bandwidth...but I found it rather useless. I like to download Podcasts and AT&T won't let me download anything larger that a 20meg file without being connected to wifi. Streaming would work, downloading wouldn't.

Although I am not totally certain, I think the majority of the bandwidth was taken up by Apples new photo streaming function. Photos taken on any device are automatically sent to all of our devices, thus a picture or movie is sent to the server and back to all of our devices. Not a good feature when you're traveling with limited bandwidth!

My previous experience doing remote access, both of us checking email and surfing the web seemed to average about a 1.3 gigs a week. I'll be anxious to see next time we're out to monitor our usage.

Ken