Remote Desktop Technology (Teamviewer)

Remote desktop is a big deal among a lot of people who play around with technology a lot, much more than me. I am just trying it out for the first time on my desktop today, and I'm curious to see how it's going to work. In the most basic sense, remote desktop just allows you to control one device from another, sort of a remote control, hence the name. I believe it is useful mostly for business purposes as opposed to personal use because it allows greater mobility while working and allows you to use strong hardware on a mobile device.

Being able to control your computer from anywhere is a good business tool because it increases your mobility while working. Although this is not a favorite activity for many working people, it allows you to work more easily while at home or on vacation when you can only bring your phone or you can't bring a laptop, and as Business News Daily reports, can help exponentially with IT support. As it is known by probably everyone, phones just can't do what a computer can, it doesn't have enough development yet to do that. Being able to control your computer from your phone gives it at least some of the advantages you get on a computer, mainly access to programs. Many more specialized softwares are not available on mobile devices yet, softwares that are on company computers. Remote desktops allow you to use those programs. It also lets you share files with your computer so that if you have the support for a program on your mobile device. And while its fun to do on a personal computer, it really isn't essential to any part of your life. As I wrote the beginning of this post I downloaded a remote desktop software called Teamviewer, and tried it out. It's really fun, but at the moment I really can't think of anything I really need it for on a weekly basis, much less a daily basis. In business, it is much more easily utilized because it gives you greater mobility while working, and it also allows you to utilize stronger hardware.

Remote desktop software allows you to take a smartphone and use it like a full computer, even though the hardware in a smartphone is generally less powerful because of its small size. Where this would be especially useful in business is in 3D graphics. Most phones cannot handle the graphics that you can get with just about any desktop graphics card. If you're out and about and want to show somebody a design you made, you can pull up a remote desktop and can access it for them that way, and it will be a fully functional computer screen that you can interact with just as if you were actually in your office. Once again, for personal use, this feature isn't really a big deal. You can't game on your phone if you have a remote desktop, and most programs that a personal user would want to run for any reason while they were out are usually available on the mobile device. Software for remote desktops is really only viable for business because lets you take control of stronger hardware in a mobile situation.

Having played around with Teamviewer a little bit, I am starting to realize that its kind of a pain to do anything functional on it, like write a paper. Business is the only thing I see it actually being viable for because there are moments in your job where you need something, no matter how hard it is, or you need to show someone something when you aren't near your computer. For personal use, it really is just not worth the hassle, especially since you aren't getting paid for living.