bruceb news

Altexa provides an online backup service – a small program copying designated files to an online storage space in a simple, secure way.

I have no idea whether Altexa is a good service! They may be great, they may have awful software, they may be out of business in a month. I have no knowledge, I don’t make any recommendation.

What interests me is that the storage space that Altexa will use for your files is purchased from Amazon. There’s a whole Amazon division (“Amazon AWS”) devoted to making space available to developers for storage and services. Here’s info from Amazon about what they’re doing to make their platform available to third parties. […] continued

America Online appears to be offering a useful service – words I have not spoken often in the last ten or fifteen years. For $6.95 per month, AOL’s new service Link2PC allows remote access to one or two computers from any location. Here’s an article about the new service.

This is not a new idea – here’s my comments from last year about stalwart GoToMyPC and newer competitors MyWebExPC and LogMeIn. But AOL’s monthly fee is far lower than those business-oriented competitors, and it’s possible that AOL still remembers how to make simple, usable software. After watching the development of AOL Messenger for the last couple of years, I can’t help but wonder if Link2PC will pop up advertising or movie previews unexpectedly – but hey, maybe I’m just cynical. […] continued

Microsoft and Yahoo have both begun testing overhauls of their web mail clients. Here’s an article about the new look for HotMail, scheduled for rollout next year.

The new Hotmail closely resembles Outlook 2003, and supports drag-and-drop, right-clicking, selection of multiple items, and full-featured contacts and calendar folders.

More of you are demanding 24×7 access to your Outlook folders. The improved web mail clients will increase that pressure – it will seem limiting to be cut off from Outlook when you leave the office. Forwarding messages to the web mail clients may become more common.

There is also new Microsoft technology in Exchange Server 2003 that permits connection to your Outlook folders from anywhere, either from Outlook directly in your office or using Outlook Web Access from any Internet browser. […] continued

More and more people are looking for remote access to their office computers to run programs or work on files from outside the office.

Microsoft Small Business Server users have it best. The remote access offered by SBS works like a dream.

If you’re an individual or working in a small office that hasn’t graduated to a server yet, you have some tempting options.

GoToMyPC has been around for several years, and it has proven to be easy and reliable – my clients have had good luck with it in the last couple of years. There’s a $19.95 monthly fee, but it’s like anything else – if you’re going to use it, that’s a small price to pay. […] continued

Remote access to an office computer is becoming a top priority for many people. Microsoft Small Business Server 2003 includes remote access options that are rich and satisfying; even very small businesses are putting servers in place to take advantage of the remote tools.

Individuals in home offices or very small businesses have more choices than ever before. PCAnywhere is the old stalwart but it continues to be tricky to set up a firewall to allow access to PCAnywhere from outside the office, and it requires that PCAnywhere be installed on the remote computer – fine if you’re carrying a notebook but no access from an Internet cafe or hotel business center. […] continued

You may not realize it, but the world of computing is changing this year faster and more fundamentally than ever before. Slowly but unsurely we’re being untethered from our computers.

Small Business Server 2003 is affordable even for very small businesses. A built-in feature, Remote Web Workplace, gives access to your Outlook mailbox from anywhere – all presented in an Internet browser. It’s far better than using an ISP’s clumsy web mail facility, or forwarding mail to a Hotmail account so you can check messages while out of the office.

Even more amazing, SBS 2003 allows access to your desktop computer similar to PCAnywhere – from anywhere, in a session that is also begun from an Internet browser. […] continued

It’s increasingly common to feel the need to be able to access Outlook remotely. Maybe you want to check your mail or do some work from home, or maybe you want to stay in touch while you’re travelling. It’s always frustrating to tell people that Outlook is designed to deliver mail and hold information on a single computer. It takes some planning to make it share nicely.

Small offices can move up to Small Business Server 2003 – click here for my thoughts on September 3. It’s cheap, reliable, and one of its many features is Outlook Web Access, making your Outlook folders available to you wherever you have an Internet browser. […] continued

As we get more mobile, it becomes difficult to leave Outlook behind when we step away from our desk. America Online and MSN/Hotmail are awful services, but the idea of having access to your mailbox whenever you’re online, regardless of where you’re sitting, is pretty appealing.

There’s several answers. Companies running Microsoft Exchange Server can set up Outlook Web Access, which provides access to Outlook through any web browser. If a company provides VPN access, then Outlook can be loaded directly – very slowly – or Remote Desktop or PCAnywhere can give access to your workstation.

Laplink has announced an intriguing new product, Laplink Everywhere. […] continued

I just had a very positive experience with a service that offers an intriguing alternative to PCAnywhere.

PCAnywhere has traditionally been the only choice for controlling your computer from remote locations. It’s very good at what it does, but it has some shortcomings. It’s expensive; it requires software installed on the remote computer, as well as the host computer; and configuring it to make connections isn’t as easy as it should be. In particular, the procedure for making connections over the Internet is badly implemented – it really needs wizards at both ends to help normal people make sense of it. […] continued

Symantec has created a great resource for PCAnywhere users. There’s an extensive set of tutorials on program features and troubleshooting tips. Each one can be viewed with Shockwave animation, or with normal graphics, or with plain text. Click here for PCAnywhere tutorials.