Log Me In

Work, work, work...

Friday night I was hit with a programming emergency (yes... that does exist) and I've got a lot of work to do. I therefore spent all of this beautiful day in front of my computer. I'm staring outside my window, just to the left of my screen, at big red, yellow and orange tulips (thanks to Desney's amazing gardening) and a bright sunny day. Alex is hanging out outside and Desney is "Karchering" the terrace. I'm working in front of my computer... All day.

One of the things I'm working on is a change in a very important tool I use in my everyday business. I have been using Go To My PC for about 2 years now to connect to my clients' computers and work on them when need be. Prior to using Go To My PC I used PC Anywhere to connect to computers. But that was very clumsy, required the user to establish the connection each time and was even more expensive than Go To My PC. Go To My PC, which works across Firewalls and without the user being logged in, has been revolutionary to the way I work and allowed me to work on computers regardless of where they are in the world.

Remote control, or telemaintenance, has made my professional life much easier. I can be anywhere in the world on the Internet and my client(s) can be anywhere in the world on the Internet and I can work on their computer(s) as though I was there in the room with the computer. This is vital to my work. However it has greatly reduced my revenue. It used to be that I would go to a client's for a half-day or a day or longer to carry out installations and I would bill them for my time spent (half-day, day, days, ...). This is easy for everyone to comprehend as I am physically present and working. Now I don't have to go to the clients' location to work on the computers and the intervention does not have to be planned and pre-ordered. This is great from the clients' point of view. However I'm still having difficulty getting the clients to be billed for time spent (an hour here, a half-hour there, a couple of hours here) when I'm not actually physically present. I am therefore actually working the same, if not more due to the ease, and earning less. I am an amazing technician, if I do say so myself, but not the world's greatest business man...

While on my last trip to London I was watching The Gadget Show, nerdy geek that I am, and they did a report on a programme called Log Me In. They were, of course, reporting on the free version which was quite interesting. The free version allows you to control another computer, presumably your own or a contact's, and work on the computer remotely. The free version doesn't allow transferring file, or remote printing or file sharing or some of the other neat functions of the pro version. But for basic telemaintenance you can't beat the price. Highly recommended...

I went to the Log Me In web site to check out the Pro version just out of professional curiosity. What I found amazed me. The Pro version provides the same functionality as Go To My PC at a much lower price. Go To My PC starts at about US$15 per month per computer and Log Me In Pro starts at about $13 per month per computer. I have 65 computers with Go To My PC and my price was therefore reduced to about US$ 12 per month per computer. The equivalent with Log Me In Pro is an amazing US$ 3.60 per month per computer. But the difference is not just price.

With Log Me In Pro I can see all of the computers available on one screen and organise them in to groups, etc. But for the same price they have another product range called Log Me In IT Reach. This is where they just make Go To My PC eat their dust. With IT Reach I can see all of the computers, I can create "secondary users" to whom I can give access to specific computers without them seeing the other computers. With this I can give my assistant in London access to the London computers without having to give him access to my other clients' computers. I can also give clients themselves access to their own computers, where necessary, without giving them access to others. With IT Reach I can also see every time someone's connected to a computer, how long it's been turned on and connected and all sorts of other information stored in logs. With IT Reach I can even work on the insides of the computer without disturbing the user. I can work with the command prompt, the registry editor, the services, etc. without opening Remote Control. I can see the disk space usage, the memory usage, the error logs, the event viewer, etc. without having to interrupt the user. It's like being able to look under the bonnet while the car is still moving. With IT Reach I can even set up alerts and messages so that the computer can send me e-mail messages when it's got a problem... it's a pretty amazing product.

I spent a few hours, while at the same time programming away, setting up quite a few computers with the different versions: I set up all of the home computers with the free version, as I can transfer files via our internal network, and many of my clients' computers with the IT Reach version. I played around with them for a while and had a great time. Geeky Power Control Freak Heaven! I'm afraid Go To My PC is about to lose (another) client.