The other day I was at a political event (imagine it was early November!) and a young woman I knew came up to me and told me she loved my BLOG!! I always get excited when someone tells me that, it makes me feel like I am helping someone.

This blog is about giving out some advice from the point of view of a late blooming baby boomer (maybe I should say, late – exploding!) and the challenges we face trying to stay in step with technology. If you have some advice or comments post them here, or email me, I would love to hear from you.

Back to my friend at the political event…her mom often calls her and asks for help because something weird has happened with her computer. This has happened to all of us. Not only is it frustrating to YOU because you cannot make your computer work, but you have to explain to a person that truly WANTS to help and cannot really SEE what is going on. So everyone gets a little short tempered!

Here’s her answer !
A free application called, www.logmein.com

The free version, is a very simple remote-control type of assistance…the person that you designate as your helper, can simply view your desktop and help you….just like they were sitting next to you. They see what you see.

VERY IMPORTANT ADVICE that she gives me about this is that you DO need to trust the person who has the ability to access your computer since they can log into your computer at anytime it is turned on. It’s not like you hand over controls or anything, it’s an “always on” when your computer is on line.

If you need something more robust, my friend has purchased her own “PRO” version and spend s12 a month to use that so she can transfer files between her home computer and her work computer.

For her, she says it saves a TON of space and instead of weekly file backups and the time to transfer files (much less the times that you didn’t think you needed access to that file you worked on), between work and home. She can easily select the one or two files from one computer and transfer them to wherever she is – without having to copy everything back and forth between hard drives or carry a silly stick with files on it around her neck.

This is a great idea! And a helpful tool for sure. I like the idea of being able to test out the free version and then make the decision if you want or need the other features.

If there is something you use and you want to tell us about it, we would love to hear it!!