But you may not want to ditch the laptop just yet. Using Parallels Access is a promising step forward that can lighten your load. You'll need an iPad 2, 3 or 4, or an iPad Mini and a Mac running OS X (Mountain Lion, Lion, or the upcoming Mavericks) or a PC running Windows 7 or Windows 8. Mac owners get a free two-week trial for now the trial is indefinite on the Windows side because Parallels Access for Windows is still in beta. The cost is $79.99 per year per remote computer, so the price can add up if you want to have remote access to multiple machines. You separately download an "agent" program on each PC or Mac that you want to access. To get started, you download a free app on the iPad from the iTunes App Store. Parallels Access must make nice with both the network that the computer is on and the network that the iPad is on. In simple terms, certain specific network "ports" must be opened, which might require intervention from your company's IT department. Moreover, I was unable to access some of the proprietary software that I use in the office, and the explanation for why gets rather technical. Parallels claims that the service works well even in low bandwidth situations, but when my connectivity was lousy so was Parallels performance. Not all the pain points that the new service is supposed to help eliminate have disappeared. But the PC you're connecting to remotely cannot be asleep, much less offline. You can also require a password before anyone logs in. Anyone back at the PC can disconnect you by hitting a key on the computer. To preserve your privacy, you can "lock" your PC or Mac to show a blank screen when you're connected remotely. If one is available, you can always use Parallels Access with a wireless physical Bluetooth keyboard. There's also support for the German language at launch, to be followed by French, Italian, Japanese and Chinese (Traditional and Simplified). It supplies the appropriate onscreen keyboards with the dedicated special keys used on either a Mac or Windows keyboard. Indeed, the lack of a physical keyboard on an iPad remains a primary reason that many of us continue to carry a laptop - and it's why Parallels Access still isn't a perfect solution in all cases. Another helpful feature, especially when you don't want to rely on an onscreen keyboard: You can use your voice to dictate text. ![]() Moreover, if the PC or Mac program can play music, you can hear those tunes on the iPad, too - and so as not to disturb the people back home or in the office, the sound won't be heard there. If you're on a Mac running a Windows "virtual machine" through Parallels Desktop 8 for Mac, your PC programs will also be applified on the iPad. Special touch controls are automatically applied if you use Microsoft Office 2013 on your computer. You have the option to display a mouse pointer. Using gestures, you can enlarge a column or picture, drag and drop, and scroll. In fact, you can copy something off your computer, and paste it into an iPad app, though the feature didn't always work. Release your finger, and contextual buttons appear for such things as cut, copy, paste and selecting text. ![]() If you tap and hold your finger against the display when tweaking, say, a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet that resides on your computer, you'll see a familiar iPad "magnifying glass" to magnify the text or numbers, with a visible cursor that makes it easier to make a change. You can also use a browser running Adobe Flash on the iPad. And you can interact with those applications on the tablet as if each were designed for the iPad. The big deal here is that you can use any and all of the programs that reside on your remote computers - the proprietary program your company uses, Microsoft Office, or Quicken on your PC at home. ![]() Yeah, we've seen that sort of thing before. As its name suggests, Parallels Access lets you use an iPad to access your home or office PC or Mac from afar. On Tuesday, Parallels - a company that made its mark letting folks run "virtualized" versions of the Microsoft Windows operating system on a Macintosh computer - launched a new subscription service called Parallels Access, which can help free you up so that the iPad is the only computer you take on the road. To get stuff done on the go, you continue to schlep a laptop. There are just too many hassles - you can't run certain programs there's no physical keyboard connectivity can be poor. It is less likely that you engage in many "productive" type activities on Apple's popular tablet, despite business and work apps that are meant to take the place or complement similar programs on your PC or Mac. NEW YORK - You almost certainly use your iPad to watch movies, listen to music, play games, surf the Web, read a best seller and so on. Poor connectivity can affect performance.Apps behave as if they were produced for the iPad.Provides remote access to your Mac or PC.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |