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Lighten Your Tech Burden (And Save Money)
The Travel Technologist · December 18, 2001

Even though Marjory Hawkins travels with a Sony Vaio laptop computer, one of the lightest and most dependable PCs on the market today, she'd rather leave the hardware at home.

"I am tired of hauling it around, especially now that you have to turn it on every time you go through the airport," says the Orinda, CA, communications consultant. "It takes extra time to get through security - and if your battery is dead, you are in trouble when they ask you to turn it on."

Cassie Leigh Vauter, a Corpus Christi, TX, travel agent, is also exhausted from schlepping her Compaq notebook with her when she's on the road. "Its heavy and bulky and I'm sick of it," she complains.

Alexander Velaj used to have that problem until he discovered a site called GoToMyPC.com, an Internet-based service that allows you to connect to your computer from any Web browser. "Now my laptop is history," says the Stamford, CT, insurance agent.

Not only does GoToMyPC let you discard your heavy laptop, but also over time, the service could save you money. For as little as $9.95 a month, which is the cost of subscribing a single PC to the service, you can break your dependency on your portable. If my math is right, then you could save about $1,700 over the lifespan of your computer. That's assuming you paid $2,000 for the laptop and subscribed to GoToMyPC's entry-level service.

GoToMyPC isn't new; it emerged from "beta" (that's tech talk for its test phase) last spring and started getting favorable reviews in some of the large consumer publications by late summer. This didn't impress me as much as the recommendations of this column's readers, who dared me to try it. With more travelers than ever wishing they could lighten their laptop load, I didn't need much convincing.

Signing up for a GoToMyPC account is easy. A small application downloads and installs onto your PC. The program lets you control your desktop remotely from any Web browser. I could spend paragraphs reviewing the technology behind the system, but you probably have two basic questions: Is it safe-and does it work? The answer to both is "yes."

But it's a qualified "yes." The service uses 128-bit encryption technology that's very difficult to crack. One of the passwords you use is unknown even to GoToMyPC, which is great for your privacy, but not so great if you're trying to get help but have forgotten your password. Some of you are still likely to be worried about a hacker penetrating your PC remotely. I happen to think it's far more likely that someone will break into your office and steal the darned thing.

GoToMyPC works, too. It's far and away better than any other remote connectivity software I've tested. I wrote part of this story by remotely logging on to my office PC from another room in my house. However, since I relocated to South Florida I've been on an unbearably slow 28.8 kbps dialup connection, so everything I did - typing, "blacking out" text, cutting, pasting, deleting, and saving - was done in S-L-O-W M-O-T-I-O-N. I wouldn't recommend using this service unless both your sending and receiving PCs are on a high-speed connection or local network. If you have to dial in, don't bother.

And there's the real limitation of GoToMyPC. It'll save you money, maybe keep you from having to visit your chiropractor, but if you're using a phone to connect, it will utterly exhaust your patience. Limited bandwidth is something even the geniuses at GoToMyPC are unlikely to find a way around.

Until they do, don't even think about throwing your laptop away.

Christopher Elliott is a travel commentator based in Key Largo, Fla. All e-mailed questions may be edited, condensed or republished at the site's discretion. The Travel Technologist appears weekly on this site. This story was also published on SmarterLiving.com.