While I use (and love) TeamViewer, not everyone's IT budget can justify the $700 expense. If you're in need of a good, zero-config alternative, check out Ammyy Admin.

It's a very slick application. Both the host and remote user download the same file - a tiny (128kb), portable executable. Launch it, and Ammyy displays one tab for the client and a second for the host (operator). Just like TeamViewer, your host connects to an echo server and receives an ID. Enter it into your client id window and click connect. Like TeamViewer, all communications are fully encrypted.

Once the host confirms your request, you're in. It's not as fast as TeamViewer, and it doesn't support autoscaling - but it does have a few advantages. Price is one, obviously, but I also appreciate that the Ammyy host service can be installed while you're connected to a client.

It will also remember authorized connections and automatically add remote operators to its list of permitted users. Ammyy also sports a file transfer mode which looks and functions much like TeamViewer's version. Again, AA's implementation isn't quite as fast, but it's still good enough to get the job done.

While autoscaling your hosts' screen isn't an option, you are able to zoom to predefined levels. There are also buttons to send ctrl-alt-delete and ctrl-esc to your host (TeamViewer lacks the latter).

For a free application with no nag screens, Ammyy Admin is a simple and highly functional tool for remote support.

Hamachi is a great app. So is VNC. Torrents are great, too. You see where I'm going. These are all great on their own - so when Remobo rolled them all in to one, tasty package, I was pretty excited.

Set it up, add your buddies, and you've got an instant, private P2P network. Click the My Shared Files link and create torrents of your folders and files with two clicks. When your buddies view your shares, they'll see a simple web page with links to the torrent downloads. It's simple, and it works quite well.

Clicking windows file sharing on a buddy will display their Windows file and printer shares (like Hamachi does). File access speeds (even over my sluggish DSL) are good, and at least on par with Hamachi's free offering.

VNC allows you to remotely manage one computer from another. But the thing is, you usually have to be at another computer to do this.

MochaSoft has just released a Mocha VNC Lite a VNC client for the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch allowing you to control another computer all from your finger tips. We tested VNC Lite with a Mac Mini and an iPhone and after enabling remote management on the Mac connecting with the iPhone was a breeze.

The app supports both portrait and wide screen modes as well as the zoom in and out gestures. Along the bottom edge you have buttons for the on screen keyboard, options and to enable/disable mouse clicks.

Screen refresh on the iPhone was a bit slow but adequate but because the iPhone/iPod Touch sole input device is your finger it was hard to do any meaningful task.

Generally, when you're using remote management software like VNC you're using a keyboard an a mouse. Without these devices, trying to administer a computer with one finger proved to be slow and awkward.

VNC Lite is a great application, but we couldn't recommend it for any type of serious administrative task.

Crossloop is a remote desktop application with an easy to understand interface. You can literally get up and running in minutes without knowing a thing about ports or protocols.

There are other applications that will let you connect to another PC over ther internet like LogmeIn or VNC. But neither is as easy to use as Crossloop. Normally, remote desktop applications require that the host PC to run a server which can be complicated to set up, not so with Crossloop. The person needing assistance just installs crossloop and runs the main application, then goes to share, and gives the access code to whoever is helping them. That person then enters access code and all the difficult stuff is handled by the Crossloop server.

Crossloop recently created a social network, connecting people who have problems with people who want to fix them. You can even build up expertise, a type of karma system that reflects on how effective you are.

Being able to access one computer from another, via some sort of remote desktop utility is hardly a new development, Windows and Mac OS have included VNC clients with their operating systems for years. Being able to access a Windows computer from your Mac isn't even new -- the Windows Remote Desktop client is available for the Mac, and programs like TightVNC will allow Windows users to connect to a Mac running Tiger or Leopard, assuming the sharing preferences are configured correctly.

However, the downside to using a client-based VNC is that if you are on a trying to connect to a computer from a system that with access restrictions (say, a computer in an Internet cafe or in a school computer lab), you may not be able to access the necessary software to start the remote connection. That's where services like LogMeIn come in.

As long as your target computer has the LogMeIn client installed and is connected to the Internet, you can access that system from a different computer simply using your web browser. And although Mac users have been able to connect to Windows machine via LogMeIn for quite some time, the reverse was not true. Until now. Last week LogMeIn released the first full release of the LogMeIn client for the Mac. Right now, the free version of LogMeIn, which is sufficient for most home users, is available, and as the name implies, free. A free beta is also available for the LogMeIn Rescue (which is aimed at IT professionals or computer technicians, as it makes it easy to take control of a client's machine without having to pre-install software).

There are quite a few ways to use your Windows Mobile phone or PDA to control your desktop computer. Probably the simplest solution is to use LogMeIn Free. But if you want a bit more control over your computer and data you might want to check out zoomVNC, a new VNC (Virual Network Computing) client for Windows Mobile.

You'll first need to install a VNC server on your PC, but there are plenty of free options out there. ZoomVNC, on the other hand will set you back $20. But here's some of what you get for the money:

• Ability to connect to multiple servers at the same time and switch back and forth between connected PCs.
• Text copied on your mobile device can be pasted into remote applications and vice versa.
  
• Create macros for key combinations like Ctrl-Alt-Delete.

ZoomVNC will work with Mac or PC VNC servers, but the developers recommend using Vine Server on Mac computers rather than the default VNC server.

You'll need Windows Mobile 5.0 or Windows Mobile 6 to run zoomVNC.

Avi Dardik has a quick guide on how to set up a secondary PC using VNC (for multi-platform support) to act like a KVM switch and allow you to switch between active full-screen sessions on your host machine and a client machine at the tap of a hot-key. Although many may argue that using VNC software for this purpose is a pretty ugly hack, the reality is that this scenario is extremely common, and very fast on a local network.

The only thing I would add is that if I was going to set this up with strictly Windows PCs, I'd substitute Remote Desktop for VNC. Remote Desktop is simply so much faster and more efficient between Windows PCs that there's no reason not to. That is, of course, if you have XP Pro or a flavor of Windows Server for your "client" machine. XP Home won't allow you to make a Remote Desktop connection to it unprompted.

[image courtesy of Wikipedia]