It can happen to the best of us. We carefully prepare for some period away from our main computer by copying important files to our netbook. You get to the destination and realise that something's missing or you need to change something and the application you need is on the computer back at the office.

LogMeIn is an online service that lets you remotely access your computer. While this is possible by installing software like VNC or using Windows Remote Desktop Connection, those options aren't easy as they require configuring your router or firewall. LogMeIn's approach is far simpler. Run a small program on your computer that advertises your computer's presence on the Internet and then access it from any web browser.

Starting out requires setting up an account at www.logmein.com. Once you've created the account and logged in you can add each new computer that you'll remotely control with your account. For a Windows system, there's a 10MB application to download and install. We used the free version of LogMeIn. This supports basic connectivity but you can't listen to system sounds, remotely print, drag and drop files between the host and client systems.

Opening your computer to remote access might be considered a security issue. As LogMeIn works through a web browser it doesn't require opening any extra ports on your firewall. All communications are secured using SSL encryption from end to end and logging in to a computer requires access to both your LogMeIn account and a user account on the computer. Once a connection is made, a pop-up appears at the top of the remote system so anyone sitting there will know that the system is being remotely accessed.

LogMeIn's performance is highly dependent on the quality of your Internet connection. However, if you're constrained there are some things you can do so that low bandwidth doesn't prevent access. For example, you can reduce the video quality from full colour to grayscale. We actually found that grayscale was better to use than the low colour options. It's also possible to reduce the screen resolution on the fly so that fewer pixels are being pushed up and down the connection.

One of the challenges that we faced using LogMeIn was that fitting a full display into the reduced space of a browser window made it hard to see some of the detail as everything was shrunk. The magnifier that operates in the client makes it easy to see detail.

One of our daily uses of LogMeIn is to run MYOB from the computer in the office to create quotes and invoices. Doing things this way is easier and cheaper than running multiple copies on the office computer and laptop. With LogMeIn we can remotely connect to the office system, run MYOB to create an invoice and then access that document either from our FTP server of by using a free file syncing service like DropBox.

As well being able to remotely control your own systems, LogMeIn is handy for helping out friends and family. If you've got a family member that needs your help regularly, setting them up with LogMeIn so you can remotely control their computer can save you a trip in the car and plenty of hair-pulling as you can show then what to do as well as explaining.

LogMeIn has become an essential part of our computing environment. Remotely accessing systems to run specific applications, access documents and to help friends using the free service has made life much easier. If you ever wish you could access your home PC when out and about, LogMeIn is worth considering.

By Anthony Caruana