Category: Review

Reviews, references, referrals

Remote Desktop Access

There are a variety of ways to connect to your computer when you’re not at home or in the office. There is only one easy way to do this for free and a lot of more complicated ways to do it for free. If you don’t mind paying $20 per month you can go to a couple dozen companies for this sort of service and they make it easy for that monthly fee.

This is a free list of options with the most simple at the top of the list:

  1. logmein.com – from LogMeIn where you can find a variety of remote services including a free version that is the only free option I know about that is simple to use. Even though you won’t see the ‘Free’ option right away you will as you are going through the process of installing their software on your computer.
  2. Remote Desktop – from Microsoft is built-in to all Windows professional class versions of Windows. If you have Windows pro or business you are part of the way there. Then you need to enable port forwarding on your router to your computer. Default Port to forward: 3389
  3. RealVNC – UltraVNC – TightVNC are all basically the same open source software that will work similar to Logmein but requires the same port forwarding on your router as the Remote Desktop. Default Port to forward: 5900

Click Here for a video on how to setup VNC and a router.

Complete Backup by Imaging

My favorite backups are disk images. By taking a complete image of your hard drive you can be sure all your data and programs are saved.

The downside is you need a lot of storage to keep these images. Since hard drives are relatively inexpensive get an external hard drive to keep your backup images.

  1. Ghost 14 – from Symantec is the one I use the most even though there seem to be a lot of preferred options to Ghost from Symantec.
  2. True Image – from Acronis seems to be the preferred program and tool for imaging disks.
  3. Reflect – from Macrium has a free edition that is good but doesn’t have the bells and whistles of the other two.

Ghost and True Image are a very good value for well under $100. The most expensive part of any backup scheme is the storage. Get your hard drive, download the software and get backed up!

Click Here for the video on how use use Ghost14 without install.