Software Bashing!
Originally published at Ramblings of an Insane Puppetmaster. You can comment here or there.
Yes Even we who could be considered “Microsoft Fanboys” find things that MS puts out that we don’t like.. Today I am talking about Microsoft Live Mesh. It is Microsoft’s take on remote access similar to GoToMyPC.com however I have never tried gotomypc as I have been using other remote connection methods.
Live Mesh is good in the fact that #1 it’s free, #2 they give you 5GB of storage space for files, #3 you don’t need to remember IP addresses or god forbid port numbers to connect to in order to access a machine.
It is Bad for the following reasons, #1 You have to sign in to each computer with your live account (w/e@hotmail.com) and it does have a remember me and sign in automagically option but still meh (and yes I understand the concept of it) where this falls short is that it’s only for PCs you own. No Helping Wahid in California or Mom and Dad in Alaska unless you give them your username and password for live. #2 When you connect to a computer it disconnects the current user and tosses you in at the login/welcome screen so you still have to put up with that annoyance. #3 This could have been added with #2 but I felt it needed it’s own number…. There is NO Interactive / Shared mode so you can show your parents not to click on the banners that say “Winner Winner Chicken Dinner!” and you also can’t share porn sites with your father. Finally #4 It takes forever to connect… Once it negotiates and decides it’s going to connect… If a user happens to be logged on it plops a dialog box on their screen saying “HEY SOMONE WANTS TO USE THIS PC IS IT OK?” but then just disconnects them and connects you after a minute of waiting anyway.
Short Story…. In my Opinion get your favorite flavor of VNC and run a client for no-ip.com all free and all relatively easy to set up…. Sure it’s unencrypted, but you can buy the crazy whacked out versions of VNC from some companies for that. or you can just run it through a VPN.
If it sounds good to you or you just want to try it to get your own opinion get it here: Live Mesh Website