Features

Remote control by something tiny - Pockethub review

It was my judgement (in an edition of Personal Computer World) that while GoToMyPC and Laplink Everywhere were really remarkably clever for mobile PC users, they did the
vacuum-cleaning thing when it came to mobile phone users. They sucked.

Naturally, I have a solution: it's a product called PocketHub, from
PocketWatch Systems at - and it is specifically
designed for mobile phone users.

There is nothing to stop you using this from a PC. And with the greatest
respect to PocketWatch Systems, it has to be admitted that it works far
better if you use a PC to run it remotely, just like its rivals. There
really is a limit to how well you can operate a high-res PC with 1024 by
768 pixels when examining a text-only WAP display.

But it works.

Setting up the system was pretty much automatic. The software is
downloadable on a two-week free trial - which I warmly recommend, because
it is not going to be for everyone. Even better; there's a "live demo" on
the web site, which lets you see how it works, actually controlling a real
PC at the PocketWatch office.

If that looks good, download the trial software. It's a 46 megabyte download. Run the install executable, and use the default settings.

The first important detail to watch is the "Register" screen. I know most
of us have pretty much got used to skipping this on the grounds that it
just generates useless spam! - but in this case, you need to do it,
because the thing wants to know what device you're using to access your PC
from.

The next important detail is when you start entering your personal data.

I know that security is really quite important when setting up your home
PC so that it's accessible from the Web! - but even so, there are security
tricks which are quite appropriate when working from a full keyboard, but
which you will hate yourself for when using the twelve keys of a mobile
phone. For example a punctuation character is a great idea when setting up
a password, which should be long, have letters and numbers, have no words
in it which a dictionary would provide, and be impossible to pronounce.

But unless you know where the punctuation characters on your phone
keyboard, skip that bit, is my earnest advice. I used one, and by the time
I was done testing the thing, I was ready to shoot whoever created the
password. And it was me, of course. Tip: pick letters which are the first
option on a keyboard, avoid letters like C, F, or I - and, of course, S or
Z which take four key-presses. If you think that restricts you too much,
then at least make sure you pick consecutive letters which occur on
different keys, so that you don't have to sit and wait for the recogniser
to time out before you select the next one - ABC is a no-no, as is DEF.

The same applies to your username. I tried using my complete name on the
grounds that firstmiddlesurname would be unique (it was!) - but it takes
weeks to type that in if you aren't a fast texter. Worse still, in order
to login, I had to enter the URL of my pockethub node, which was:
http:// firstmiddlesurname.pockethub.net which is a real thumb-burner.

[Would-be crackers please note: my trial name and password expired two
weeks after I did this review, so even if you think you know my middle
name, don't waste time seeing if you can hack my PC with it...]

The next trap is in selecting what applications you are going to use. The
point is that you won't be in "remote control" mode unless you select the
"browse PC" option, and so you won't be able to fix things which aren't
working.

By default, PocketHub expects you to use Outlook for mail, calendar, notes
and contacts. On my test machine, it turned out, I hadn't set up Outlook
for mail, so when I dialled in the first time, the system froze. On the
home screen was a standard Outlook dialog box asking me to run the "first
time setup" wizard. Nothing I could do about that until I got back home...

In each case, PocketHub has its own application, and it's worth setting
that up for a start.

The list of devices you can use to connect to it with, is enormous, and
includes selecting which phone carrier you have, too. I set it up on an
Orange SPV for fun; but the list is long. You do have to know which model
your phone is, I'm afraid.

After setup, if you like, you can run the Tour, and get tuition. I found
this to be useful, but you can do that any time, as long as you are in
front of the host PC - not on the remote phone.

Give it a go; it's pretty painless. That's not to say it's ideal; and it's
also not to say that it's simple and foolproof. You may, for example, have
a phone with a camera, but it may nonetheless take you a while to work out
which combination of keys allows you to upload pictures using your WAP
link to your PC, and it may vary enormously, depending on where the phone
keeps the files.

At the end of the day, I found that this was useful, and I've decided to
set up a subscription. Being able to access the home machine over GPRS/WAP
from a phone is, frankly, not going to be something I do often enough to
justify the pound per week it costs; but having remote control from
another PC certainly is. For fifty pounds for outright purchase, I can't
see a problem. If the terms and conditions were to change, obviously, that
would be another question - but I'm not expecting that to happen.

Summary: PocketHub worked for me. Used over broadband from one PC to the
other, it wasn't the fastest remote control system I've used. However,
over a GPRS phone-based link, the speed of the WAP connection was the
bottleneck, and I suspect most people will only use that for checking
email on the home machine. But for that, it's invaluable, because you can
actually leave the home machine, with all its broadband speed and power,
to handle the downloads, while you just examine the list of senders, using
tiny amounts of data across the air.

Of course, there are other ways of looking at your email over the air, and
in a future article, we'll look at things like Smartner's Duality server,
and RIM's BlackBerry. They're good, professional systems, much used by
corporate IT departments. However, as you'll discover, they require more
than just a nodding acquaintance with POP3 and IMAP and SMTP
authentication, setup, and redirection and are most certainly not designed
for the home user with nothing except a broadband link.

By contrast with most other remote-email systems for private users,
PocketHub is within the capability of the clumsiest amateur to configure
and use; and as a remote control system, it is about as cheap and simple
as you could hope for.