f you use a computer both at home and at work, then you probably know the difficulty of keeping the two machines synchronized.
Your computer at work has one set of applications programs, your computer at home has another. Or you might take an important file home to work on, then forget to bring that file back to work the next day. Or you might simply have a better printer at work.
One way to manage this complexity is to put both your computers on the Net, and then use Internet programs like FTP (File Transfer Protocol) to move your files around. Another technique is to use file sharing; I know of one MIT professor who accesses his office hard drive from home.
Unfortunately, both of these techniques work best if you have a high-speed link and full-time Internet connection on both sides. For example, you might have a cable modem at home, and your company might have an expensive ''leased-line'' or ''T1'' Internet connection. Without the full-time availability, you are likely to find yourself in one location and your files trapped at the other. And without the high speed, you might find yourself waiting half an hour or longer to download a large PowerPoint file before you actually work on it.
Another approach to sharing information between the home and office is to use a remote control program. This software lets you call into your home or office computer over the telephone and take control of it. When the remote user moves the mouse or types on the remote keyboard, the remote control software simulates these actions on the host computer.
Everything that is shown on the host computer's screen gets sent over the telephone lines to the remote. Although this sounds somewhat awkward, the software is remarkably easy to use. The remote user can run a word processor, read e-mail, use a spreadsheet, and even reboot the host computer if something goes wrong.
Remote control software is also surprisingly fast. That's because the programs don't send the application software or the documents across the phone lines - they just send the changes on the screen. In practice, this means that you can use a fairly obsolete computer, like a Pentium 100, to dial into an ultrafast Pentium III, run sophisticated financial modeling software, and enjoy Pentium III performance.
There are limitations, of course: Scrolling through large amounts of data can take a long time, and don't expect to play any games over the modem. Both scrolling and games require being able to send a lot of data from the computer to the screen, and that is something remote control software doesn't do very quickly, because all of the data needs to be sent over the phone line.
For small organizations and home users, remote control software can be a low-cost approach to networking. Instead of going through the hassle of setting up a file server, network printers, and sophisticated dial-up software, you can simply leave a copy of a remote control program running on an office PC or Mac. Then, home users can simply call up the machine, access its files, run its applications, print, and hang up.
The most popular remote control program on the Macintosh is Timbuktu Pro, which is now sold by Farallon. It costs around $140. Timbuktu is also an easy way to remotely manage a Mac that's locked away in a closet somewhere and is being used as a Web server or a file server: Besides connecting over a modem, you can also connect over a local area network using Appletalk.
On Windows, the two leading remote access programs are Compaq's CarbonCopy32 ($130) and Symantec's pcAnywhere32 ($140). Traveling Software has its own remote access program called Remote DeskLink ($50), which is also built into LapLink Professional ($140). All of these programs offer remote control by telephone, over a local area network, or over the Internet.
These programs all offer the basic remote access features: remote control, remote printing, and file transfer. LapLink Professional has the most additional features. When you print with LapLink, you can print on either the local machine or the remote machine. LapLink is optimized for Windows 98, it will work with Traveling Software's proprietary USB cable (useful for presentations), and it will support simultaneous connections by modem and over the network.
But I found that CarbonCopy was the easiest program of the three to use. For example, you can just click a button on the program's user interface and set CarbonCopy to automatically run when your computer boots, so you don't need to remember to launch it yourself before going to work each morning.
All of the programs reviewed here allow you to set up a user name and password to control access to your machine. This is an important step: If you don't put a user name and password on your remote access program, then anybody who calls up your computer will get full access to all of your files! The programs also let you encrypt data sent between the remote computer and the server.
Technology writer Simson L. Garfinkel can be reached at plugged-in@simson.net
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