Remote Desktop with a Twist

Those of you who have gone through the XP Pro class will hopefully remember our experience with Remote Desktop. If you don't remember, Remote Desktop is a Windows-integrated way of connecting and controlling a computer that is not in front of you. It brings the desktop of that computer to yours and it's an incredibly convenient way of administering computers easily without having to install and configure a bunch of software -- you simply throw a check into a checkbox upon client install and then later, you can remote into it.

Provided you have at least Windows 2000 SP3 or above, that is.

If you don't then, well, you have to install some other form of remote control -- which is easy enough to find. One of my favorites is VNC, which Draughons uses. The problem with these 3rd party programs is that they have to be installed -- it's so nice to have the capabilities built-in to the OS.

At Holy Trinity, we have computers running OSs as old as Windows 95 and as new as Vista, with all sorts of OSs in between. Since the school is a private one, many of the computers have been donated and there are little funds to upgrade the older computers. Which, when you consider their occaisional classroom use, is fine. I just can't remote in them to fix any problems. Waaahhh.

So, what I have to ask myself is: is it worth it for me to research and install a 3rd party remote control application and then walk around and install the software on every machine -- a very tedious process that makes you wish you could install the software remotely (which is the whole point of the install anyway! HA!)

Until today, the answer has been no. But today, I happened upon a piece of software that just might make it worth it.

The software is called iTALC (not to be confused with iCALC), and it allows me to remote into any computer running its client software. Yes, that does involve an "in-person" install. But! Here's what makes this package cooler... [taken from iTALC's website]

• see what's going on in computer-labs by using overview mode and make
  snapshots
• remote-control computers to support and help other people
  show a demo (either in fullscreen or in a window)
• the teacher's screen is shown on all student's computers in realtime
• lock workstations for moving undivided attention to teacher
• send text-messages to students
• powering on/off and rebooting computers per remote remote logon and logoff and remote execution of arbitrary commands/scripts

My favorite features are the overview mode (secret spying), turning all the students's computers to show my screen while I demonstrate something (negating the need for a $1,000 projector!), and locking workstations while I talk (3rd graders have an even shorter attention span than you guys!).

I plan on testing this (and ultimately using it) in my Vista lab to see if it's worth traveling around to each and every computer for installation. Hopefully, it will be.