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What you need to get
started telecommuting

In our last column we discussed the benefits of telecommuting from the perspectives of the employee, the employer and, the environment. I believe that greater adoption of telecommuting will go a long way to reduce traffic congestion. And it's not that hard to do!

Let's assume that your company is interested in adopting telecommuting as a policy. What will you (the telecommuter) need in the way of hardware and software to get started?

You're going to need a broadband connection. Whether it's DSL or a cable modem, the speed and capacity of broadband is absolutely essential.

Make sure you have a good speaker phone or a headset with a microphone. When you're working in your home office, the advantages of being able to use your phone hands-free are enormous. It may also be possible to forward your office phone line to your home number but usually you would want to do this only if you have a second line for your home office.

Now we'll get a bit technical. Often at home we need specific files or to operate a specific program that might be on a different computer than our laptop or our home office machine. How on earth do we get to those files or that program remotely?

Then there's the issue of security. If we are not careful about transferring files it's easy for a hacker to hijack our documents or even snoop inside our home computer. To answer these questions, we looked at several products that any business, small or large, might consider for getting access to computers when you're away from the office or home.

Let's tackle the software end first.

GoToMyPc (www.GoToMyPC.com) has been around for several years and has consistently had rave reviews from the trade press. It's very secure, it's inexpensive and it's simple to use. Essentially, it allows you to access and control a Windows PC from any other Windows machine.

The next product up the food chain is a product from Symantec called pCAnywhere. The good thing about this product is that it allows the user a lot of control over a remote desktop. Unlike GoToMyPC which just gives you a screen, pCAnywhere has a file manager that allows easy file transfer from one PC to another.

Then there's the issue of security, which means you're going to need a good hardware firewall with a virtual private network. What's the point of a VPN? A VPN goes one step further than a basic firewall, which is designed to keep the bad guys from snooping inside your computer. The main advantage is that one can communicate remotely without risk of having your e-mail or documents intercepted.

There are a number of companies that make excellent firewalls with built in VPN, including Netgear, D-Link, Sonicwall, WatchGuard. Prices start at around $100 and go up to around $500 for the top quality brands such as Sonicwall. Of course, you will need to have compatible equipment at the office in order to make this work.

If you're just working on files at home and e-mailing them to the office there's no need for a VPN. However, if the information is "sensitive," you may want to invest in an encryption program to keep it safe in case your e-mail is intercepted. The big drawback with this method is that you need remember to send all the files you need from work to your home before you can begin work there.

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