I decided to access the workstation remotely. How could I do that? I began looking into software to allow me to log in to my own computer from another computer, tablet or even smart phone.
Long story short, after trying three different applications I decided to go with LogMeIn. I read lots of blogs, forum posts and reviews.The best solution for me might not be the best solution for you but I don’t need to watch movies or listen to music played over my phone that resides on my computer. I do need my applications to be stable and not crash or not launch when I log in remotely.
The two applications I purchased were LogMeIn Ignition for Android and LogMeIn Ignition for Windows. Here is a picture of my Droid X2 being used to access my laptop…
Of course it would be gewfy to try to use, for example, a spreadsheet program residing on my computer by logging in remotely with my phone, but many times in the past I have run a simulation, not reached the performance I needed and had to change a few parameters and run the simulation again. Over and over and over… This I can easily do from my smart phone.
I considered upgrading my laptop instead of getting a honkin’ big workstation, but decided the performance of a workstation outweighed its lack of portability. But now, I have both performance and portability, as this picture shows…
So as long as I have wi-fi (at home) or the internet (on the road) I have both. Plus, I don’t have to manage all those dongles on the laptop. Plus, when it comes time to replace my aged laptop I can get an Ipad if I want, and still run my weird-ball engineering stuff. (I would have to get Ignition for Mac.) This works so well that I haven’t even connected a monitor and keyboard to the workstation yet. (I intend to.)
Drawbacks
I can wake up a sleeping computer (as long as there is an ‘awake’ computer on my network) using Ignition for Android but not with Ignition for Windows. I can’t hear the sound output of the ‘host’ computer through my local computer’s speakers. I can’t transfer files. Using some applications remotely violates the licensing agreement.
Benefits
The clipboards of the local and remote computers are synch’d. I can use my smart phone as a remote control for our entertainment center PC, turning it on or off from downstairs. I can turn on a webcam from my smart phone and check up on the dog.
So far (see drawbacks) I’m pretty happy.
Antenna Guru 