Keep InTouch (1/2)
01 Communique I'm InTouch, Desktop Edition v5.0
INTRODUCTION
Remote desktop control from your internet
enabled Pocket PC is one of those "How did I ever live without
it" applications. The possibilities are really quite endless. Imagine
being able to perform serious number crunching or compiling software
on your Pocket PC. Forgot your proposal back at the house? No problem.
Need a fully featured web browser with Java and multiple tabs? Easy.
I'm InTouch software, from Ontario based 01 Communique allows you all
the functionality of a host desktop computer through your internet enabled
Pocket PC. Of course it also allows you limited connectivity via a web
enabled smartphone, and full connectivity through any internet connected
computer.
This all sounds good on paper, but how easy is it to really control your desktop from a Pocket PC? And why use I'm InTouch instead of other similar utilities such as Terminal Services? Let's find out.
WHAT'S HOT
I'm InTouch Desktop Edition v5.0, is the
latest offering from 01 Communique. The major new features added with
this release include support for Pocket PCs, and also allows local printing
of documents that are on the host computer. This feature enables you
to print documents locally without needing a locally installed version
of say, Visio, AutoCAD etc.
SETUP
Setup is straightforward. First,
you download a small installer application. After running it, it asks
some basic configuration questions, and then downloads the rest of the
program from 01 Communique. During installation, you select the mail
application that I'm InTouch will monitor (Outlook, or Outlook Express).
Then you give your computer a unique name, login, and password that
you will use each time you wish to connect.
After you set up this basic information, you are prompted for a second "Desktop Viewer Authentication" password. I'm InTouch recommends that this be different from your login password for added security. At the end of this process, I'm InTouch automatically loads the configuration window, and allows you to make any necessary configuration changes.
I ran into one well documented issue during installation. I'm InTouch installs a file named rdesktop.exe. This file apparently has matching heuristics with some trojan or back-door viruses, and thus triggers a virus alert. Now depending on your anti-virus software, the file may be moved to quarantine, which aborted my installation half way through. My only option to successfully install the application was to completely disable my anti-virus software during installation, and then re-enable it afterwards.
The I'm InTouch web site has instructions on how to ignore the rdesktop.exe file for most major anti-virus vendors, however, my particular software does not allow me to ignore an obvious "threat," and as a result I receive notification about once a day that I have a virus.
PROGRAM FEATURES
I'm InTouch provides these major features:
- PC Desktop Control via any web enabled computer, or Pocket PC
- Computer access from web-enabled smart phones
- File transfer / file browsing
- Email access and management (Outlook and Outlook Express only)
- Contact and calendar management (Outlook and Outlook Express only)
- Wireless email notification
- Streaming video from a connected webcam
- Remote printing
- Guest access
- Half the price of it's major competitors
I'll take a look at each one of these, as it pertains to the Pocket PC, but be aware that all of this functionality is available from any internet connected computer, often with more feature rich interfaces and without the limitations of the Pocket PC's small screen.
Let's look at some of the more general architecture.
I'm InTouch installs a task bar client and runs two instances of apache.exe, which I'm assuming is the Apache Web Server, on your host computer. Together, these services weighed in at a hefty 27MB of RAM. The task bar client serves as access to the configuration of the application, and also maintains "Registration" with the central I'm in Touch servers. In this way, I'm in Touch allows you to connect with your computer, even over a dynamic IP address.
Also important to note, is that no passwords are stored on the I'm InTouch servers. They are all stored locally on your host machine, which provides you with complete privacy from I'm InTouch, and all communication takes place over a 128 bit secured connection.
Remote Desktop Control
This is really the key feature for I'm InTouch software. It provides you with full control of your host computer's
desktop through your Pocket PC, almost as if you were sitting in front
of your computer. This opens up a whole new realm of uses for your Pocket
PC. For instance, you can use any IM client, start and stop servers,
visit Flash or AJAX heavy web sites, access your network files at work,
and even play turn based games like Civilization. Clearly, applications
that require sound are not currently supported, and applications that
have frequent, full screen updates (full motion video, and some games)
become a little painful over a slower data connection.
So how does this all
work? First you need to log in to the I'm InTouch server by either
visiting http://locator.01com.com/ (the extra "com" is not a typo) in your Pocket PC's browser, or selecting the I'm InTouch icon. After
typing in your unique computer name, you're prompted to login in to
either a remote desktop session, or access some of the other functionality.
For now, we'll control my desktop.
After your initial
login, you're prompted to download a 40KB client file. It would be nice
if you only had to do this once per device, however downloading this file
generally takes 10 seconds or less, depending on your connection.
Next, the desktop viewer is loaded, and you're prompted for the remote desktop viewing password you established during setup. After an authentication period, I'm InTouch loads your desktop. Of course, my desktop is usually locked, so I need to login again to my desktop.
It seems like this is a lot to go through each time you want to view your desktop. My very non-scientific experiment showed that it took me 3 minutes from initial button press to full desktop viewing. Of course, your connection speed has a large impact on this time, and with the roll-out of EVDO and other high speed wireless technologies, this would be a negligible process. However, I felt that 3 minutes was a small price to pay for full desktop access. Note that this longer login process is only necessary for the full desktop control. Other features are available after the first login screen.
One of my major concerns with I'm InTouch, was how easy it would be to control my desktop via my small Pocket PC screen. The verdict? Plenty easy. I'm InTouch provides two features to assist with this. First, I'm InTouch downloads your full desktop screen into memory, so that scrolling around on your desktop was plenty fast. Second, I'm InTouch provides 5 levels of zoom to enable the level of control you need.
These two images show the Fit to Screen view, and the 75% Zoom view. I found I was most efficient at the 75% Zoom level, which had a nice balance between legibility and screen real estate. You'll notice on each of these images, there is a little gray button at the top. This provides access to the I'm in Touch menu, visible here:
This menu provides for all of the options you need while using your remote desktop. You can pin this menu, zoom the desktop 5 different levels from Fit to Screen to 100%, switch between landscape and portrait mode, use an on screen keyboard, and send Ctrl-Alt-Del etc.
Performance depends greatly on the speed of your connection, and to a lesser extent, on power of your Pocket PC. With my cell phone provider, I found that I needed to issue a command, and then wait a few seconds for the screen to refresh. By doing this, I avoided queuing up several commands that ended up tapping buttons that no longer existed etc.
Computer
access from web-enabled Smartphones
While the remote desktop
control is certainly the most powerful feature of I'm InTouch, the
software also provides a number of text based features that work for
most smartphones with a web browser. These include checking email, calendar,
and contacts, in addition to file transfer and browsing. You can either
select a specific function at your initial login, or you can navigate
to the following home page which provides access to all of the functions.
File
Management
The file transfer
and browsing feature enables you to view all drives attached to your
computer, including network drives, CD-ROMs and even virtual drives.
Because it's text based, the performance while browsing is good, however
in large directories, navigating through "page 25 of 73" can
become tedious. Fortunately, I'm InTouch provides you with a find feature
that searches the local directory and makes this process a lot easier.
You can either download files to your device, or you can attach the file to an email and send it to a more easily accessible location. Note that all file transfers must first go from your host PC to 01 Communique's servers, and then from 01 Communique to your local device. So while grabbing that spreadsheet you forgot is easy, transferring your 500MB backup file is not. The major limitation of the file transfer feature is that you can only transfer one file at a time, and you cannot transfer folders. Although in a pinch, you can browse back to the desktop, zip up the files you need, and then transfer the zip file.
Email
access and management
I'm InTouch provides
access to your Outlook or Outlook Express email, but it doesn't currently
support other email clients. Of course you can use any client you want
while remote controlling your desktop. However while using this text
based interface your options are more limited. This feature provides
all the email functionality you would expect: Reply, Forward, Attachments
(from host computer), Delete etc.
Contact
and Calendar Management
With the contact and
calendar management you can create, view, and edit existing contacts
and calendar appointments, although in most cases I'd assume this information
would already be on your Pocket PC in a more user friendly format. However
if you were keeping your work and personal contacts separate, or hadn't
recently synced your devices, this would definitely be useful.
Here we can see the calendar in it's full text based glory. This would work in a pinch, but again, if you had this on your PDA, or could view your remote desktop, it would be a lot more efficient. Note that on an internet connected computer, this feature is much more usable as well.
Notice that the month based calendar makes use of the horizontal scroll bar, and extends out for other days of the week. It also conveniently bolds dates on which you have an appointment.
Wireless
Email Notification
I'm
InTouch's wireless email notification allows you to monitor one or
more Outlook or Outlook Express based email accounts, and send a notification
to an email address of your choice, (e.g. your mobile phone's email
address) when you receive a message.
Streaming
Video
If you have a web cam
attached to your host computer, you can actually watch streaming video
on your Pocket PC using this feature. I wasn't able to test this feature
out because I didn't have access to a webcam, but it would certainly
be interesting to see how it would perform over a mobile phone based
data connection. This ability could be quite useful to check on the
kids at home, or monitor security cameras back at work etc.
Remote
Printing and Guest Access
Both
of these features pertain more to internet connected desktops than a
Pocket PC, but they certainly merit discussion.
Remote
printing enables you to print a document from your host computer, on
the local computer, without having any particular software installed.
Thus you can print proprietary reports, blueprints, or even music scores
without having those large (and expensive) software packages installed
locally. Now here's the catch. You must have the appropriate printer
driver installed on the host computer to do this. This makes it slightly
less practical to do this unless you consistently print work documents
at home, or vice versa. However with enough time, you could remotely
install the needed drivers on the host computer via remote desktop control.
The guest access feature allows up to 10 other people to view your desktop, which enables you to host your own web conferences. These guest accounts can each have different access levels, and would need to be disabled after a conference.
Why Don't You Just Use the
Pocket PC Terminal Services Client?
Now you might be asking yourself how this compares
to Terminal Services. The answer, is that while Terminal Services
and I'm InTouch both allow you to control the desktop, I'm InTouch
provides many distinct advantages.
Most importantly,
viewing and controlling your desktop via I'm InTouch is much easier.
The I'm InTouch zoom controls enable you to see more of the screen
when you need to, and achieve a level of balance not possible with
Terminal Services. I'm InTouch also presents your entire desktop,
at its current resolution, whereas Terminal Services resizes your
desktop, possibly reconfiguring your icons, changing window sizes,
and generally making life more difficult. In addition, the Terminal
Services client redraws your screen as you scroll around, while I'm
InTouch loads the entire screen at once. Finally, the quality of
the graphics on the remote display are much higher with I'm InTouch.
Other significant
differences include:
Why Don't You Just Use the
Pocket PC Terminal Services Client?
Now you might be asking yourself how this compares
to Terminal Services. The answer, is that while Terminal Services
and I'm InTouch both allow you to control the desktop, I'm InTouch
provides many distinct advantages.
Most importantly,
viewing and controlling your desktop via I'm InTouch is much easier.
The I'm InTouch zoom controls enable you to see more of the screen
when you need to, and achieve a level of balance not possible with
Terminal Services. I'm InTouch also presents your entire desktop,
at its current resolution, whereas Terminal Services resizes your
desktop, possibly reconfiguring your icons, changing window sizes,
and generally making life more difficult. In addition, the Terminal
Services client redraws your screen as you scroll around, while I'm
InTouch loads the entire screen at once. Finally, the quality of
the graphics on the remote display are much higher with I'm InTouch.
Other significant
differences include:
- I'm InTouch supports file transfer from the host computer to your device, whereas Terminal Services only allows you to view the host computer screen
- I'm InTouch manages Dynamic IP connections if you have one. With Terminal Services you would have to use an additional service or software to ensure that you could connect to your computer on a Dynamic IP connection
- Terminal Services is client based, only providing access on systems with the client installed. I'm InTouch works on any system that has a web browser that supports Java
- I'm InTouch allows you to connect to your host via a text based interface with smart phones and other devices
Now with all of that said, Terminal Services has two advantages. First, it's already installed on your Pocket PC, and it would work in a pinch (assuming you knew your IP address, and had Remote Desktop enabled on your host). Second, the technology used to transfer your desktop to the remote device is fundamentally different than I'm InTouch, and it's a little faster over a slow mobile connection.
Continue On: Bugs and Wishes / Pros and Cons / Conclusion . . .
