Favorite remote support utilities -- RE: Filepro-list Digest, Vol 79, Issue 47

[Fairlight]

Y'all catch dis heeyah?  Brian K. White been jivin' 'bout like:
> > Sure, it lets you do 8 users at
> > once.  Show me the person that's connected to 8 clients at once and doing
> > justice to any of them.
> 
> Are you disregarding the case of 20 or 50 or any number of viewers 
> watching a sales demo or a class?

That's something I consider a different class of software.  That's
remote presentation software, not remote control software.  And in the
interests of full disclosure, ScreenConnect's (the software I've been
lavishing with praise) own web site says it is -not- intended as remote
presentation software.  It's support-centred software.

Totally different semantic purposes, even if many of the features overlap.

So yes, I was entirely discounting that case, but in the context of the
original question by the OP, it made sense to do so.

> Also I think it _would_ actually be useful for a single person to be 
> able to view any number of different remote desktops at the same time.

Oh, I agree.  But how often do you do it?  One of the only times I'd
actually do it would be if I were on two Windows-based systems and wanted
to read what I had in production somewhere on one, and type it into the
other.  If it's linux-based, I don't use any RDP, I use ssh, so it's a null
factor for me.  That, or -maybe- if someone interrupted me with an urgent
issue while I was already on another system, and I didn't want to lose my
place on the one I was already working on.  But that'd be pretty rare--and
I mean -really- rare, since I can disconnect and reconnect at-will without
losing my place; it'd only be if I were too damned lazy to want to close
the first window.

For my money, that extra concurrence isn't worth the cost.

> Classes and windows server monitoring come to mind as immediate 
> examples. I'm sure certain managers would love to see all their 
> employees desktops too but even if we arbitrarily discard the ugly uses 
> like that which we happen to personally find distasteful, there are 
> still at least a few cases maybe more that are perfectly likely and 
> valid where connection count per license matters.

There are programs better tailored to that kind of use.  (I, too, find
arbitrary monitoring a privacy [and decenty] violation, even in a corporate
setting.  If you trust them that little, then fire them and take your
chances with a wrongful termination suit.)

There is some -really- need software along similar lines but with a far
different purpose.  Rather than me describe it here, go to this and check
out the details quickly:

http://www.techsmith.com/morae.asp

Actually, their Camtasia Relay software is also really neat in concept.

I have Camtasia Studio 4, 5, and 6 (can't currently budget in an upgrade to
version 7 in this economy, nor SnagIt 10, much as I would like to update
them just to have the latest--this economy is brutal on non-essential
upgrades, and I have about 8 packages from three vendors that I'd otherwise
update...).  Anyway, having Camtasia Studio and SnagIt, I can say that
TechSmith makes -really- solid software that's well worth the price.

Morae really, really interests me, and may become a reality for a startup
I'm in with a partner--eventually.  Sort of a "deploy and improve"
scenario.

But again...overlap, but with a wholly different repurpose.

> (Viewer/client/server are all poor terms. In the case of beamyourscreen 
> any session participant may become the source of imagery that all other 
> participants see at any time, and any session participant may be granted 
> keyboard/mouse control of the source of imagery at any time, and none of 
> them needs any license but the single initiator of the session which all 
> other participants joined, who needs exactly one license.)

Depends on the architecture.  If you have systems that have both VNC server
and viewer, roles are easily interchanged, unattended, and if you set it up
-just right-, you can have multiconnects to one server.  It won't let you
switch servers "on the fly" though.  

With ScreenConnect, if you take the appropriate steps, you can reverse
roles--just did it to more easily demonstrate what I had via my system,
rather than walk them through it on the phone.  It was actually cool, as
their desktop was into mine via ScreenConnect, and then for part of the
session I MS RDP'd into their 2003 server to make changes, so they could
see my RDP over their SC connection to me.  So there were two sets of RDP
going back and forth over, what...four hops.  All pretty darn speedy with a
500kb/256kb connection (current sync rates on my line in this weather).

The BeamYourScreen stuff sounds neat, but it's really something I'd regard
as presentation software more than general remote control software.  The
overlap is there, it's just a superset, IMHO.  It sounds good.  From what I
read, I think Mikogo is the same thing, just limited to 8 at once, and a
few features stripped out.

Personally, from a professional presentation point of view, I would rather
do a video for presentation purposes than do a live session.  Live sessions
have the plus of being able to address user questions, but have the minuses
of getting sidetracked, time stretched, and you can't "polish" the final
presentation like you can with a produced video.  There are times for live,
but I personally would pick pre-produced 95%+ of the time.  Or at least
produced, leading to individual or small-group live.  But handle most of
it canned up-front and then handle any specific questions with a personal
demo.  Could just be me...

mark->
-- 
Audio panton, cogito singularis.