Remote working today really is simple, there are in effect 2 ways to do this.

1. The first way to working remotely is to actually connect to your work computer and then control it as though you were sitting at it.

2. The second method is to share files, long gone are the days of copy files to and from devices such as Pen drives, this can all get very confusing and you can easily overwrite the wrong files with older versions, especially if you have more than one person using them. A very simple way is to use a service such as Dropbox.

1. Connecting to a computer

To be able to do this you will need..

• A computer at work.
• A computer at home or your remote location.
• Both computers need to be connected to the Internet.
• Some software suitable for remote working such as Logmein.

How does this all work?

Choose your remote control software, you can use something like VNC or PC anywhere, but for ease of use a service such as Logmein is free and a very easy way to setup remote working .

You just need to go to Logmein.com and setup an account from your pc you wish to connect to, choose the free option as this will suffice for more users.

Then download Logmein’s remote working software, and install it.

It’s worth remembering, you may need change power settings to stop the computer going to sleep or standby modes as remotely you won’t be able to connect to a computer that’s is in power saving.

From the pc you wish to connect from go to the Logmein website and login, now you should be able to see your pc that you downloaded and installed the software onto.

Select the pc and choose remote control, enter your pc login name and password and you should see your remote computers screen as though you were setting in front of it, your now working remotely .

If you find the screen update too slow change the performance settings in Logmein’s performance preferences.

2. Remotely Sharing Files

I use a product called Dropbox to share files, you can get a free account giving you 2GB of storage.

How does Dropbox work?
Once you setup your Dropbox account, download the software and install it on any computer you wish to share data from the rest is pretty automatic.

Dropbox creates a folder within your Documents folder, anything you copy to this folder will automatically be copied to the Dropbox internet server, and this will then be replicated to any computer you setup with Dropbox and your account.

Make a change on a file from any computer that is setup with Dropbox and after a few minutes it will be replicated onto any other computers.

Make a change or add a file while you’re working remotely but not connected to the internet and any changes will be added the next time you do connect.

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