Remote Desktop for Travelers

[ChuckC]

Well, for those who don't know me, I am a self-confessed techno-clueless type.

That said, I was overjoyed at work this week when presented with a new Dell 810 laptop on which our IT department had placed something called a "remote desktop". I will be doing quite a bit of traveling this year for work and had asked our IT gurus how I could stay in touch with the office. The "remote desktop" was their answer. When I click on it, no matter where I am traveling I am instantly connected with my office computer, its programs, all my files, my e-mail, etc.

Now, you all may say "duh, that's been around for ages" (has it?), but I was quite impressed. Am actually thinking about how I will be connecting to the office while sitting in wifi spaces at various airports, using my T-Mobile wifi acccount. For me, this is "space age"!

Chuck-

[preiffer]

duh, that's been around for ages...

[:p]


Seriously, though - it's a great tool. Microsoft actually provide a MacOS client to control Windows XP machines remotely, too - great move forward [y].

Originally posted by ChuckC
Well, for those who don't know me, I am a self-confessed techno-clueless type.

That said, I was overjoyed at work this week when presented with a new Dell 810 laptop on which our IT department had placed something called a "remote desktop". I will be doing quite a bit of traveling this year for work and had asked our IT gurus how I could stay in touch with the office. The "remote desktop" was their answer. When I click on it, no matter where I am traveling I am instantly connected with my office computer, its programs, all my files, my e-mail, etc.

Now, you all may say "duh, that's been around for ages" (has it?), but I was quite impressed. Am actually thinking about how I will be connecting to the office while sitting in wifi spaces at various airports, using my T-Mobile wifi acccount. For me, this is "space age"!

Chuck-

Remoting like this has been a around in various forms for quite a while - I've run a number of satellite groundstations around the world in this way over the years, although I don't use Remote Desktop because often corporate firewalls stop this traffic. I use Remotely Anywhere that usually works through firewalls. What doesn't work well is anything with graphics because of the bandwidth requirements.

Cheers, Howard

[HighFlyer]

Yeah i have to agree that Remote Desktop is a fab thing. Glad you are enjoying it Chuck!

I have several machines at work that i need to use for different purposes, and lazy bones here doesnt have to leave her comfy chair as i remote into them all.

Thanks,
Sarah

I use free software called VNC. A VNC server runs on my PC, and I use the bizarrely named "Chicken of the VNC" as the client on my Mac.

I haven't tried using MS's Remote Desktop. Is it better?

I've used MS Remote Desktop a little, but not extensively.

My dad uses it for work and it seems quite good- let's him connect "securely" to his systems at work. I don't know how "secure" it really is, I don't really think MS has prooven itself lately on security measures.

I have gotten quite a bit of use of VNC, and I do like it.

I'm not sure how secure that is either, but I do believe I used a pocketPC version of it to access files on my desktop from my PDA. I believe it was VNC.

[RichardMannion]

Originally posted by webdes03
I've used MS Remote Desktop a little, but not extensively.

My dad uses it for work and it seems quite good- let's him connect "securely" to his systems at work. I don't know how "secure" it really is, I don't really think MS has prooven itself lately on security measures.

I have gotten quite a bit of use of VNC, and I do like it.

I'm not sure how secure that is either, but I do believe I used a pocketPC version of it to access files on my desktop from my PDA. I believe it was VNC.

Remote Desktop is a great feature - the amount of requests from customers to put it in the client version when we released it in Windows 2000 Server family was immense, hence why it was put in XP Pro. It is very simple, and is secure - the data is encrypted within the RDP protocol for the traffic going between the remote client and host. The client has been updated to allow you to utilise the virtual channels so you can use a local printer, smartcard readers and disk drives, there is some clipboard access to which works well if you copying text strings between sessions.

As Paul said, there are clients availalbe for a number of OS's, and you can also get the Remote Desktop client as an ActiveX control so you could just go to a web page and remotely access your machine.

One of my favourite features of recent years and one that I use a lot - especially being able to use machines in headless mode.

To pick up the point of security, as mentioned the RDP protocol includes encryption (which you can configure to use a preferred alogrithm), but this is within the channels you use to connect to your remote network (VPN or RAS), with most companies using at least one other layer of encryption security.

Thanks,
Richard

[ChuckC]

Aw, you guys have gone all "techno" on me. Now, I don't understand one bit of what you've all said!

Chuck-

[mitchja]

Remote desktop is great but does make you lazy [:I]. I use RA Admin. Our IT department at work use VNC.

Recently I've also started experiementing in creating a VPN to my home network when I'm away. My DSL Router (Netgear DG834G now has built VPN capabilities with the latest firmware upgrade). I've purchased the VPN Client Software and installed it on my lap-top. This means I can now join my home network using my lap-top whilst I'm away.

Regards

[Bazz]

Originally posted by ChuckC
Aw, you guys have gone all "techno" on me. Now, I don't understand one bit of what you've all said!

Chuck-

Chuck, you should have guessed what would happen when you started this thread [?];)

I'd run TS over another layer of security though (over the internet) as Terminal Services uses RDP which can be comprimised by a man in the middle attack

VNC is a useful freebie especially for those not using XP pro etc
This is even less secure however so I wouldn't advise using it over the net

If anyones interested I use both VNC & terminal services over a secure SSH2 tunnel

I agree you need to tunnel vnc over ssh for security. I use COTVNC on the mac, as well as plain old MS Terminal Services on the Mac to access my PC from the Mac.

The downside for these solutions is you need an online connection - which can sometimes be expensive in hotels. Its stating the obvious I know but you have to actually be connected to your host computer to use it.

No good then if you dont have an Internet connection, such as for example on a VS flight...

I have found a tool which can create a VPN connection to a computer there by circumventing any potential port blocking which may be employed on a network called Hamachi - I blogged about it here http://www.ongen.org/blog/?postid=73 This has been an absolute saviour while I have been in India for prolonged stays and still want to get to all my 'media'.