Several years back I installed two different pieces of software on my mother’s desktop PC that have served me well — Hamachi and RealVNC. My mother, like so many others, is not a computer newbie nor is she a technophile. This usually translates into phone calls asking if she should click on this, click on that, or allow this update to continue. Since I live several hundred miles away each “problem” would usually consist of a not so pleasant back and forth about what was on the screen, what was the error message, or is there simply an OK button. That all changed of course after Hamachi/RealVNC. Hamachi (now called LogMeIn) allows any user or group of users to effortlessly create a Virtual Private Network (VPN). By having a VPN connection established over the Internet, my mother’s computer could “see” via IP address my laptop and vice versa. Once this virtual connection was established, I could then type in the IP address of my mom’s computer to actually see and control her computer. This has saved me hours of unpleasant phone conversations.
Online services such as WebEx, Adobe Connect, and LogMeIn, now offer more sophisticated solutions for remotely connecting, viewing, and controlling another computer. These services are easy to setup, offer secure connections, and are often free depending on the level of service required.
What if you do not have a techie nephew or business associate to cure all of your computing ills? Sure you could call your local IT specialist, the often under trained staff of Best Buy’s Geek Squad, or you could check out a new service called CrossLoop. Crossloop marries the technical remote computer connection of WebEx with the online community of Facebook. If your favorite nephew cannot resolve your problem, then type in a few keywords into CrossLoop and a list of able bodied technicians fill the screen. Instantly you can review the stats (how many completed help sessions, how many customers served) of the technician and user feedback similar to eBay’s rating system. Knowing this information should minimize the possibility of requesting and then receiving lackluster service. As an added benefit, CrossLoop does also offer a 48 hour money back guarantee.
The concept of outsourcing work is nothing new to a print shop. Many shops already outsource the production of print jobs to a trade printer, creation of a die to a die maker, and fulfillment of other services to third party suppliers. Why not outsource some of your IT needs?
The next time the desktop in Prepress goes on the fritz, why not give CrossLoop a shot at fixing the problem at far less of an expense than your local computer gurus?
