There seems to be a lot of excitement amongst magazine writers regarding "virtual offices" that are available through the internet (e.g. www.hotoffice.com[/i]). As I was reading about these services it got me to wondering if there is any current software that can link up to a website and map it to my PC as a drive - i.e. remote access.
Ultimately what I'm shooting for is being able to store only data files remotely on a website, dial-up and map it as a drive, and then launch my local application (OpenInsight or AREV) to access those data files.
Is this a pipe dream or has somebody already "been there done that"?
Thanks,
[email protected]
SRP Computer Solutions
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=== At 20 JAN 1998 11:55PM Mark Martin wrote: ===
<QUOTE>Don,
A better solution, based upon current communications technologies, would be to use a terminal emulation routine across the Internet such as PC Anywere or Citrix. This would provide you with a remote connection via TCP/IP, utilizing minimal band width and allow for your virtual office scenario without having to remotely make available drive mappings.
You would use the Internet as you would a LAN connection to the host system and then run the application from the remote host. All you would need on the client PC would be the remote access software, the base system would reside on the host and run from there.
This type of solution has the following advantages:
1) Proven Technology that is easily implemented.
2) Secure access schema – the security is held by the protocol encoding and communications method implemented by the chosen package.
3) Managable access from a single (or set of) client(s). i.e. you could restrict and/or grant limited rights based upon allowed logins to and/or from that (those) workstation(s) accessed from the Internet connection.
4) Higher levels of through put due to lower traffic requirements – screen scrapers are cheap for bandwidth in comparison to full file access…
If you try and allow for remote drive mappings, you leave open (and virtually require) the ability to have a fully authenticated connections to your server from a potentially unknown host system. This does have some advantages but has more disadvantages than potential benefits.
Anyhow, just a thought I felt you may be interested in looking at instead…
Mark Martin
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=== At 21 JAN 1998 06:50AM Jeff Hostetter Word Enterprises wrote: ===
<QUOTE>I was just introduced to software from Microsoft called PPTP (Point to Point Tunneling Protocal). You can find info on their website
http://www.microsoft.com/syspro/technet/tnnews/features/pptpcost.htm
This software comes as part of Windows 98, however you can download PPTP now. The basic concept is using an internet connection to a server as an ordinary drive. Supposedly it is just like attaching files on C: or F:.
I am interested to hear what you decide to use.
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=== At 21 JAN 1998 09:49AM Aaron Kaplan wrote: ===
<QUOTE>I'm with Mr. Martin on this one, if not for the security aspect then for the speed. Heck, once you open your network onto the internet, you're liable for all sorts of hacking and things, so there's always a security risk. However, back in the golden days I used to log into RTI's servers through WinNT DUN to have access to servers to do the builds. All said and done, it was just soooooo sllloooowwwww….and I don't even want to talk about the long distance charges. In retrospect, I probably should have expensed those calls…(Hey Tom! Is it too late for that!)
We bought a few copies of pcAnyWhere and not only was it just oodles faster, but I could dial up, fire the build, shut down and come back on later to see what happened.
[email protected]
Sprezzatura, Inc.
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=== At 21 JAN 1998 05:33PM Mark, Jeff, & Aaron wrote: ===
<QUOTE>Thank you for your responses. I realize the problems with doing this and very probably won't attempt it as a solution for what I am doing, but nevertheless out of pure curiousity I will chase down the URL Jeff posted and see if it is even possible.
Mark, your suggestion sounds intriguing especially since I remotely access most of my clients every day (using ReachOut). What I don't quite understand is how I use the Internet as the connection between two PC's. My experience in these types of situations has always been to dial the host PC direct. Now you are suggesting I can dial through my ISP connection and connect, but how does the host PC get accessed?
The ultimate project behind all of this is to find a way for a client to remotely access the office computer (which is 200 miles away) on a full day basis (approx. 5 hours a day for a regular work week). We looked at using a standard remote control connection but the long distance charges would be enormous. So now I'm scrambling for options that would be much cheaper and hopefully not much worse in performance. If the Internet can be used in any way then that would defintely save on the cost.
If this is what you were suggesting please confirm and I will pursue this method immediately.
Again, many thanks,
[email protected]
SRP Computer Solutions
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=== At 22 JAN 1998 08:24AM Aaron Kaplan wrote: ===
<QUOTE>I don't know about the others, since they're not installed on this machine, but LapLink for Windows 95 (version 7.5b) has a screen scraper program in addition to being a file transfer utility. With this, you can choose a connection type of Dial Up Networking. Once that's connected, you pick an IP address that's also running LapLink and instant screen scraper across the internet.
Did it with someone in CA a few months back. Worked pretty quick, all things considered.
[email protected]
Sprezzatura, Inc.
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=== At 22 JAN 1998 08:41AM Don Bakke wrote: ===
<QUOTE>So LapLink allowed the host PC to temporarily act as a pseudo web server? I'm assuming this IP address is dynamic and therefore whenever the host PC disconnects from the internet and goes back it will get a different address. Does LapLink make it easy to know what this IP address is?
It all sounds very cool and useful for what my client wants to do. Seems like the only real downside is that they will have to maintain a dedicated PC in the office.
Thanks again,
[email protected]
SRP Computer Solutions
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=== At 22 JAN 1998 09:05AM Aaron Kaplan wrote: ===
<QUOTE>In my case, my IP address wasn't important. The other machine used WINIPCFG to determine his. Memory states it was dynamic, but there was a user there to read and find it for me to enter on my machine. You'll probably need a static machine permanently conected if you want to go this route.
[email protected]
Sprezzatura, Inc.
</QUOTE>
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