Corporate Intranet

Let's imagine this scenario -- you're on a business trip and 1,000 miles away from both your home and office computers. You had to spend half an hour on your cell phone and another 15 minutes sending e-mails just to get the basic information you needed for your big presentation that you're doing for your newest client.

After all this messing around, you had basically zero time to go over the presentation and to get prepared. You wound up heading into your meeting feeling anxious, rushed, nervous, and above all, ill prepared.

Has this kind of thing ever happened to you? Maybe you aren't the corporate jet-setter type who travels hundreds or thousands of miles every week. Maybe you're just an average guy or gal who needs access to your work computer so you can spend more time at home with your family.

Or maybe you're an entrepreneur, who doesn't want to be tied to your computer during those 18 hour days you're putting in building your business.

Whatever the reason, you're looking for a remote software access program that will allow you to operate a computer without you having to actually be sitting there in front of it.

I know where you're coming from. I won't go into the details of my personal story, but let's just say that when I had to give up my home office so that my wife and I could convert it into a nursery for our new baby, I knew that I wouldn't be able to spend nearly enough time at the computer as I needed to in order to build my business.

So what I had to do was to find a solution that would allow me to get access to the main computer from anywhere in the house, from the Starbucks down the street, from the bookstore across town, or from wherever else I happened to be when I needed to get some work done.

I knew I needed a solution and I needed it fast. I had heard about Go to My PC and, because I was able to find a free trial (more on this in a second), I decided to download it and give it a try.

I admit that I didn't have high hopes for it. Technology and me don't seem to mesh. It's not that I'm a computer idiot -- in fact, I'm really quite sophisticated I think when it comes to using and evaluating new hardware and software.

But with something like this, something that promised so much, I just knew that once I installed it that there would be some problem with a missing driver or out-of-date software or some other such nonsense that was going to prevent it from working properly.

I was pleasantly surprised that this wasn't the case with Go to My PC. I'm not exaggerating when I say that in less than 15 minutes I had the thing up and running with nary a call to technical support.

There are other options out there, that's true. But I'll tell you what -- if I had to do it all over again I would absolutely make the same decision. I used Go to My PC for two years until we moved into a new house and I could finally give my son his own room.

I honestly don't know what I would have been able to do if this kind of thing didn't exist.

The only knock against Go to My PC that I've heard is that you have to pay for it. Well excuse me, but I don't know if you've ever tried some of the free things out there that say they accomplish the same thing.

I'm not here to dis any one product, but I do want to say that the old adage that you get what you pay for definitely applies in this case. (And let's just leave it at that.)

Plus, as I said above, you can try the darn thing for free for 30 days and see if you think it's worth it. And there are places where you can get coupons that will give you money off the price if you decide that it's worth buying. (Again, more on this below.)