Solo Technology

Several months ago I wrote an article on Mobile Management and listed out some of the services or apps I’d been using to manage machines from my HTC Mogul phone. At the time, I was definitely a fan of LogMeIn’s service.

In fact, I still am. I don’t use it all the time, but when I need it, it is there — and the price (I’m using the free variant still) is right.

I recently received an opportunity to try out I’m InTouch remote access software. Like LogMeIn, you install an app on the machine you wish to remotely control and then access it via your browser from a remote computer or mobile device.

Install

The install is simple enough and, at first glance, the resident tray app only uses just over 1MB RAM which is handy. But look closer… you’re now running a (secure) Apache server as a service as well. After a bit of use, I noticed it was using just shy of 50MB. Not sure what it does… and looking at the .conf file, it seems to only be accessible from the machine it is running on. Interesting…

Connecting

Using I’m InTouch is pretty straightforward. From my Mogul, I browse to https://locator.01com.com/ and enter my machine name:

Next up is a username/password prompt and a menu to choose what I want to do with the remote PC:

Quite a range of choices — frankly, I haven’t tried them all yet, but “Control My Desktop” and “Access My Files” both work quite nicely.

Remote Control

The Control My Desktop option results in one more password exchange, a quick download (every time I use it as far as I can tell) and then I have my computer’s desktop on my phone.

There’s nice little popup toolbar to handle some basic settings (highlighted in yellow below). Most importantly (to me) is the ability to hit the magnifying glass and adjust the desktop scaling.

Unlike LogMeIn’s “panning” method to slide around the screen, with I’m InTouch you’ll be using scrollbars. Either way works, it’s just what you get used to. Generally the scrolling is quite zippy, but I noticed some odd sluggishness a few times. Probably more related to my data connection.

File Management

The File Management option works about as you’d expect. Tap through the drives/folders until you find the file you want. Then open/save it or send it as email. I’ve not found an option to upload from the remote to the host (yet).

There’s also the ability to do some finding and filtering. It’s a nice way to quickly grab a file from your desktop to your mobile device or remote computer.

Streaming Audio?

I’m told the new version handles streaming audio. I was keen to try that, but have yet to see it in action. Playing an MP3 on the host machine does not result in any audio on the remote. Perhaps I need to read some instructions…?

Nobody Rides For Free

There’s a free trial, but no free edition. There seems to be more features and functionality over LogMeIn (from a remote client), I’m just not sure if those additional features are compelling enough to switch (and pay).

I do like the ability to grab files though!

I’d like to know more about that Apache service.

If you’re looking for a remote access solution, I think Im InTouch is worth a look.

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