Whether you're missing a crucial file at work or home, or you just need to tweak one little setting to get Mom's email working again, having remote control of another desktop can be seriously handy. But not everybody can walk the less-tech-inclined through installing a VNC server and opening up their router ports, or have the time to create their own SingleClick tech support tool (cool as it may be). Today, we're looking at the best solutions for getting into a computer remotely, whether you're helping out Uncle Bif, grabbing files from home, or controlling your media server from the lounger. Photo by miguelb.

read more »

iPhone/iPod touch only: Mocha VNC Lite, the latest free utility added to the iTunes App Store, is one of those great programs that jailbreak enthusiasts probably thought would never appear in official form. Having arrived, however, it's a simple, easy to use tool for remote-controlling a Windows, Mac, or Linux system from your palm, with full keyboard access, double-click abilities, and support for 32-bit colours. You can flip your phone to landscape for widescreen desktops, and zoom in and scroll just like you would with a Safari web page. The only apparent restrictions on this "Lite" version are a lack of support for right clicks, a QWERTY-only keyboard, and no macros, but for controlling your media centre or desktop from another room, Mocha should work just fine. Mocha VNC Lite is a free download for 2.0 iPhones and iPod touches only.

read more »

If you're signed into your Gmail account from several computers at once, a note at the bottom of your inbox will tell you that, Google announces. Gmail's new Remote Signout and Info feature is getting rolled out to Gmail accounts slowly, and will display the IP addresses of all the computers where you're currently signed into Gmail below your inbox (shown above). You can also sign out of Gmail from a remote computer using the new feature—check out a screenshot of that, after the jump.

read more »

Next time you need to give a presentation from afar, fire up Zoho Show, invite a few attendees, and give the presentation in real-time with Zoho Show's Remote feature. You invite participants, and as soon as everyone shows up and you start the remote presentation, what they see matches exactly what you're doing. You advance a slide, their browser advances a slide. Even if you don't plan on using Zoho Show to deliver the final product, it could still come in handy to review and collaborate remotely on PowerPoint presentations (which Zoho Show imports seamlessly).

read more »

If you've got a home server running, or just a computer that controls music and video playback, the Simple Help blog has a guide that might make your digital life a little more convenient. Using the free WWWinamp tool, the author details how to set up and control Winamp from any browser, iPod touch/iPhones included. Convenient for controlling movies streamed to your television, music playing during a party, or any other away-from-computer control.

read more »

Blogger and remote-control enthusiast Tim Matheson, who previously showed us how to shut down Windows using a text message, posts a script and easy-to-follow guide for doing the same on a Mac. Everything needed for the hack comes included with OS X Leopard, except the cell phone, of course. Matheson suggests setting up a "super-secret" email address that you only use for shutdown messages, but there are other ways of remote-controlling a Mac using keywords. Hit the link to download a safe shutdown script, and post your own remote-control computing tricks in the comments.

read more »

Reader Ryan writes to ask:

I loved your column about setting up Back to My Mac for free, but I've got a Mac at home and a Windows PC at work, so what I really want is to get Back to My Mac from a Windows PC. Is it possible to get Back to My Mac from Windows?

Since the tools we used in our setup are really just versions of VNC and FTP tools baked into Leopard, and VNC and FTP are about as old and widely supported as time itself, it most certainly is. Check out the details for getting back to your Mac from a Windows computer after the jump.

read more »

When Leopard was released, one of the most enticing new features was Back to My Mac, a tool that made it possible to access your home computer remotely—including remote control of your desktop and access to your files—no matter where you are. The catch: It requires a $100 yearly subscription to the lackluster .Mac service. Right now I'm working from my laptop in Austin, and I've got the same full access to my home PC in Los Angeles as Back to My Mac offers, but I didn't spend a dime on .Mac to get it. That's because all of the tools you need to roll your own Back to My Mac are already built into Leopard for free out of the box—you just need to know how to access them.

read more »

You want access to your home computer wherever you are, whatever you're doing, whether that's via a remote desktop connection, SSH, FTP, web interface, or any other remote access you've set up. The catch is, you don't like throwing money away to an always-on system. Luckily you can have your digital cake and eat it, too, and today I'll show you how to boot and shut down your system remotely so that it's ready for you when you need it and it's not wasting energy when you don't.

read more »

You need your BitTorrent fix on such a regular basis that it could be medically labeled an addiction, so why stop riding the BitTorrent wave just because you aren't sitting at your home computer? We've already detailed how to set up a web interface for the Windows-only uTorrent, so let's turn an eye to Transmission, the go-to BitTorrent client on the Mac. Today I'll show you how to remotely control your BitTorrent downloads from any browser with Clutch, the Transmission web interface.

read more »