Desktop Sharing in a Post-LogMeIn Era

Those of us who help friends and relatives take care of their computers sometimes need to see exactly what the person we're trying to help sees. This is easy enough if the person you're trying to help is next door. Less so if the person is across town or several states away. LogMeIn, an application designed for commercial help desks, has allowed individual users to download and install a version of their application without charge. That all ended a few weeks ago with absolutely no warning.

One might question the ethics of giving users no warning about the change, but I suppose the owners of LogMeIn had some reason for acting in this manner.

Because I occasionally need to connect to my home computer when I'm at the office or connect to somebody else's computer to provide a helping hand, I started looking for a replacement.

Initially I looked at RealVNC, Mikogo, and ImPcRemote. I had previously used Mikogo, but it requires that a person be present at both computers. That's fine if I'm helping someone, but not acceptable if I need to log onto my own computer when I'm not in front of the computer.

RealVNC has free and paid versions, but there have been security issues over the years. Known solutions exist for all of the security problems, but those concerns coupled with my review of the set-up process told me to keep looking.

About that time, a listener reminded me of TeamViewer, which is free for personal use even thought it's a $700 application. I downloaded and installed TeamViewer and realized immediately that it is an excellent support tool. However, at the end of each session, it displays a nag screen and the system seems to be quite suspicious if you use it frequently, as I did during testing and set up. After uninstalling TeamViewer, I realized that I had gone through the same futile exercise more than a year ago.

So that left ImPcRemote. It's available in 2 options (standard and pro); both have free and paid versions, but you need a paid version only if you use it "a lot" or you want the developer to customize the interface to add your logo.

As you might expect, the pro version is more versatile and that's the one I installed. Depending on how you want to use the application, you need to install either the Remote Manager, the Tray Application, or both:

• Install the Remote Manager if you want to use the computer to connect to other computers and manage them.
• Install the Tray Application if you want to be able to connect to the computer.

I installed both on my home desktop and primary notebook because I wanted to be able to connect to each of those computers or to use either one to connect to other computers. At the office, I installed only the Remote Manager. Those who want to allow me to connect to their computers need only install the Tray Application.

Although the interface isn't nearly as pretty as that provided by LogMeIn, I found that it provides far better functionality, including the ability to copy files from one computer to another. That's something that LogMeIn provided only in its paid versions.

ImPcRemote Professional version

The Instant version is primarily designed for 1-time connections. The remote user is instructed to download and run ImPcRemote Instant User. This process creates a 9-digit ID that the remote user shares with you by phone or e-mail. The professional version takes longer to set up, but allows for unattended connections as needed because it is a framework program that establishes a connection with those computers on which you or the person you need to help has installed the component that runs in the Tray.

The developers have used a static 512-bit RSA key and a separate 512-bit key that changes frequently to secure the connection. Additionally, all data transferred from one computer to another is encrypted with a 128-bit AES key. For better security and faster response times, the developers suggest installing a "repeater".

The "repeater" is defined as a data-flow server. It has to be downloaded and installed along with the other components. If the server application that you download and install becomes unavailable, connections will still be handled via ImPcRemote's central server. This step, unlike setting up the basic applications, will require that you modify firewall settings and have some knowledge of ports and IP addresses.

Specifically, you need to enable port forwarding on ports 5500 and 5901. Additionally, if your PC doesn't have a static IP address, you'll need to install a dynamic name manager program such as dynDNS (dyndns.com) to maintain the connection so that your computer will appear on the public Internet as something like "myimpc-repeater123456.dyndns.net. Next, you would need to set the ImPcRemote application to use your server instead of the public server. The steps are all relatively straightforward and well documented, but most users will probably choose to use ImPcRemote's default settings.

ImPcRemote is essentially transparent to your network router or the router used by the person whose computer you need to connect to. No router or firewall configurations need to be modified.

Connecting to another computer is simple enough. Just start the application and select the computer you want from the list.

Next, you'll be prompted to confirm your desire to connect to the computer.

ImPCRemote immediately begins the process of establishing a connection.

Now I'm connected to the remote computer. It's 15 miles away, on the other side of town, but it could just as easily be in another state or even another country.

The connection is complete now and encryption is being used.

By default, ImPcRemote will attempt to provide the fastest possible response, even if that means that the display will be degraded. In most cases, the remote computer view will be reduced from 16.7 million colors to just 256. This allows the remote screen to be redrawn much faster. If you must see full-color images on the remote computer, you can modify this setting with the understanding that the screen refresh will be much slower. Refresh times are affected by the speed of your Internet connection, too, and that of the remote computer.

One feature that's unexpected in an application that's provided without charge is the ability to transfer files from one computer to the other. This is a feature that was missing from LogMeIn. The workaround involved sending files from one computer to an FTP site and then retrieving them using the other computer, but it's much more convenient to simply drag files from one computer to the other.

Although long-distance telephone fees (if you pay them at all) are considerably lower than they used to be, if you're connecting to a computer that's hundreds of miles away, or even halfway around the world, you can communicate with the user via a chat window.

The Tray service may be installed on any Windows computer with Windows 2000 and later (2000, XP, Server 2003, Vista, Server 2008, Server 2012, 7, or 8). The Remote Manager is available for the same versions of Windows as well as for Apple's Mac OSX Leopard and Snow Leopard. Although ImPcRemote will work even with a modem-based connection, the developers strongly encourage high-speed connections.

Although registered in the United States, ImPcRemote is located in Hungary, where it provides contract support to its clients. The company's website explains that it found programs such as LogMeIn and TeamViewer to be too expensive for their needs and that led them to develop their own alternative. Support organizations that use ImPcRemote may want to brand it with their own logo and they can do so by paying an annual licensing fee.

ImPcRemote allows you to help friends and relatives with PC problems

Although it doesn't have the features of Bomgar or the refined interface of TeamViewer, ImPcRemote is free for individuals to use and free even for some business use. For a free application, it includes surprising features such as the ability to start a chat session and an option to transfer files between computers. Additional details are available on the ImPcRemote website.

When a Hard Drive Dies

Conventional wisdom says that hard drive failure is not a question of IF, but WHEN. I was reminded of the truth of that bit of conventional wisdom recently when a hard drive failed. Drives F and I existed as 2 logical drives on a single physical drive. The first drive (F) became unresponsive, but drive I was still available.

Drive F is primarily used to house music files and was fully backed up. Drive I is essentially a scratch disk, used for temporary files that don't need to be backed up, so no backup existed for that drive. When a disk drive fails, it usually just fails. The failure typically affects any logical drive on the physical device, but in this case logical drive F had failed (but occasionally became visible) while files on logical drive I remained accessible.

Knowing that I would have to replace the physical drive and that everything on F had been backed up, I looked to see what was on drive I. Although losing all of the files on the scratch drive wouldn't be a problem, I decided to see if I could save some of them to avoid having to repeat the work that created the temporary files. Saving involved copying files to other logical drives that were located on separate physical drives.

That process completed without a problem, but this is something that you should not count on as a given when a disk drive fails. It's unusual for any logical drive on a failed physical drive to be accessible. But now I had several hundred gigabytes of data from drive I temporarily stored on other drives while several hundred gigabytes of data from drive F were available only on backup.

The next day I purchased a replacement drive and installed it. Then I restored the data from my local hot backup drives and, to make sure that the most recently added files had also been restored, from my Carbonite backup.

Additional research suggested that Seagate disk drives maybe aren't as well regarded as Seagate disk drives once were regarded, so I elected to replace two 2TB Seagate disk drives with two 3TB Hitachi disk drives (Deskstar 7K4000 4TB 7,200 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s Internal Hard Drive - Bare Drive) from MicroCenter. Because I knew that I would need to transfer data from surviving Seagate drive, I also purchased a NexStar SATA 6Gbps to USB 3.0 Adapter so that I could install the new drives and then use the USB device to connect the old drives and copy data from them. That turned out to be one of the best $30 purchases (now $23) that I've ever made.

I was able to use this device to copy all of the data from the suddenly retired Seagate drive to the newly installed Hitachi drives.

When I tried to connect the partially failed drive, though, I found that it had failed entirely. It was no longer recognized by the operating system and even the NexStar SATA Adapter was unable to see it.

Fortunately, nothing important was on either of the 2 logical drives that were housed on that physical drive. On the other hand, copying all files from the two logical drives that were located on the Seagate drive that was still functioning was a snap because of the NexStar SATA Adapter.

Initially, when I was able to copy files from drive F, the copy process was slow and the drive occasionally disappeared. By "slow", I mean that a 10K file, which should transfer in a fraction of a second, could take as long as 3 minutes. Clearly, the disk drive was trying hard.

Drive I didn't disappear and it wasn't quite as slow as drive F, but the process still wasn't speedy. Fortunately, all of the files that made the trip to the new drive were complete and fully functional (even though that was more of an academic exercise becuase the files were fully backed up).

Most disk drives give little or no warning when they fail and when a single physical drive houses multiple logical drives, usually they all fail simultaneously. This was an unusual situation, but it illustrates the danger of not having a backup.

I would have sorely missed the hundreds of megabytes of backed-up files that were on drives F and I. Because a sufficient backup was readily available, the incident was little more than a minor annoyance.

Short Circuits

Why Can't Microsoft Brand?

Remember "Metro"? That's what the Windows 8 touch interface was called until Germany's Metro stores objected. Now it's either "The Interface That Shall Not Be Named" or "Modern" or, as I call it, "Metro". It's hard to kill a name that was in use during the entire development process.

Now Microsoft is withdrawing its online storage service, or at least renaming it. Sky Broadcasting in England objected to Microsoft's use of SkyDrive. I suppose it was easy for Microsoft's marketing division to miss the largest pay-television service in England during their research.

The new name is OneDrive and it suggests that Microsoft Marketing still doesn't quite understand the infringement issue.

Let's look at the Metro issue first: Metro AG owns stores in Germany and doesn't have anything to do with software. Even so, it made a viable case against Microsoft for trademark infringement when Microsoft named its new interface "Metro".

And let's consider the SkyDrive issue. As a pay television provider, England's Sky service doesn't offer any competitive on-line storage facilities. The closest Sky Broadcasting comes to online storage involves its public Wi-Fi hotspots, but that's a business Sky Broadcasting acquired in 2011.

Now look at the new name: OneDrive. Could it be that Microsoft Marketing is unaware of the Web hosting company One.com? As a hosting company, One.com isn't really in the business of providing online data storage, but its offerings are a lot more similar to Microsoft's than were those of Sky Broadcasting. [www.one.com]

And what about Ubuntu One? That's an online data storage offering from one of the larger providers of Linux distributions. Might Ubuntu or One.com object to Microsoft's use of OneDrive? Ubuntu would seem to have a clear case to object because it provides services for users of Windows and Apple computers as well as Android devices. [one.ubuntu.com]

Microsoft seems to have an ongoing problem with names for its services. Remember Microsoft Wallet, which became Microsoft Passport and then morphed to .NET Passport and next to Windows Live ID? It's now referred to as your Microsoft account.

Maybe Microsoft should consider a different name for its online data service. I'd like the recommend the Metro One Online Data Store. But not seriously.

Comcast Plans to Buy TimeWarner Communications

Comcast Corporation wants to buy Time Warner Cable and is willing to pay more than $45 billion to do it. This isn't a deal that will close in a few weeks, but it probably will close in a year or so after federal antitrust regulators review the plans.

It's worth noting that Comcast and TimeWarner don't compete with each other and that's something that might allow this deal to slip through approval by the Department of Justice. Competition is nearly non-existent in the cable market anyway. The cable companies have cut deals with state and local governments that give them what are essentially monopolies in many markets.

The all-stock deal would allow Comcast to operate in 19 of the 20 largest US TV markets, including New York City and Los Angeles. The new company would have almost 30% of the pay TV market and a strong presence among the providers of broadband Internet services.

Former FCC Chairman Reed Hundt described the deal this way: "I don't know if the deal is too big to fail to be approved, but it is definitely too big to sail through either the Department of Justice or the FCC without serious, serious examination."

I'm fortunate in that I can select from TimeWarner, WideOpenWest, and AT&T. So now my choices will be Comcast, WideOpenWest, and AT&T. What are your choices now? This deal shouldn't have any effect on your choices other than changing TimeWarner to Comcast if TimeWarner is one of your choices now.

Both Comcast and TimeWarner have poor reputations in terms of providing customer service and I wonder how many people have said, over the years, "TimeWarner's support is bad, but at least I don't have to deal with Comcast." The reputations of the two largest Internet service providers were key points in some of the responses to the proposal on Twitter:

The Best Tweet Regarding Comcast's Acquisition of TimeWarner

Jason Carr @JasonCarrFox2: Comcast is buying Time Warner Cable. Isn't that moving toward a monopo-- <TRANSMISSION DELETED> Wait I wasn't finishe-- <WE ARE IN CONTROL>

Runners Up

samir mezrahi: If you need service in 2019 for the new Comcast/Time Warner you should probably call now and get in the hold queue

phil_rosenthal: Forget DOJ. Best bet to thwart Comcast-Time Warner Cable deal is each company gets stuck on hold waiting for the other.

pourmecoffee: Wow, a Comcast/Time Warner merger would create a combined customer service department of well over ten employees.

Dave Pell: Everyone who is worried about the Comcast Time Warner Cable merger can relax. I'm still getting a solid 28.8K on my modem.

Chris Kluwe: I'm sure that the recent removal of Net Neutrality and the acquisition of Time Warner Cable by Comcast is super healthy for the Internet.

Comcast says the acquisition will benefit consumers because Time Warner Cable customers would gain Comcast set-top boxes. How exactly this would benefit consumers, the company didn't elaborate, but it did say that higher broadband speeds would also be part of the deal. A little more than a year ago, Comcast paid $17 billion to acquire NBC Universal.

You Won't Care To Encounter Careto

It's pronounced CUH-reh-toe (with a rolled R) and not "care to", but you definitely don't want to allow Careto to set up shop on your computer. It's one of the more sophisticated threats currently being found in the wild and it's not limited to Windows-based computers. Kaspersky Labs says that you'll find it on Macs and Linux computers, too, and possibly on hand-held devices that run IOS or Android operating systems.

The malware starts as a phishing message that appears to be from any of several popular news sites. Most news sites encourage users to sign up for notifications, so the arrival of a message that appears to be from such sites raises no warnings. Click on the link in the message, though, and your browser will be taken to a website that scans for vulnerabilities and then attempts to inject an infection.

Careto means "mask" and apparently by implication "ugly mask".

Kaspersky says: When active in a victim system, Careto can intercept network traffic, keystrokes, Skype conversations, and PGP keys; it can analyze Wi-Fi traffic, capture screen images, and monitor all file operations.

The targets for this malware are high-value targets such as government agencies, embassies, energy industries, research institutions, private equity firms, and activists. The malware collects a large list of documents from the infected system, including encryption keys, VPN configurations, SSH keys, and RDP files. There are also several extensions being monitored that Kaspersky Labs has not yet been able to identify and could be related to custom military or government-level encryption tools.

The threat isn't new, but it has become increasingly sophisticated since the time it was noticed initially in 2007.

If you'd like to read Kaspersky's extensive and detailed report on this threat, you'll find it here.