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| Dear Craig,
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Welcome to
CN Consulting's "Cocktail
Talk".
Cocktail Talk is a casual monthly newsletter intended
to arm you with amusing bits and bytes of information on whats
happening in the computer world. Topics sure to break the ice
and capture an audience at many a social or business event.
There are buttons below
to do things including unsubscribe. If you unsubscribe you will be
immediately removed from our email list and may end up hanging
around a soggy fruit tray sipping warm beer, alone, at your next
Cocktail Party.
But that's your call, and
that's Cocktail
Talk.
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Telecommuting
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 Nationwide there are roughly 18.6
million telecommuters. Telecommuting may or may not be for you. So
lets take a look at it and you can draw your own
conclusions.
Telecommuters are those people who use their
office computers from home. Not those addicted to their
crack-berries. Those who avoid the commute to the office by working
from home. People who "dial-in".
(The term "dial"-in and is
still used even though most people who dial-in have only seen rotary
dial phones in movies.)
What's used is a technology called
Virtual Private Networking (VPN). There isn't alot to understand
about VPN, it does like its name implies, it virtually creates a
private network for you, across the internet. Working from your home
PC is just like being on the network at the office.
Your
communication to and from the office across the internet is kept
private using something called point-to-point-tunneling-protocol
(PPTP). Again, it just does what its name implies. It creates a
cozy-safe tunnel through the internet from one point, your house, to
another point, the office.
When you dial-in to your office
you must have permission. The office will only allow those on its
guest list. Your ID and password will also be checked before you're
allowed in. You're carded so to speak.
Once "in" you can use
the office network just like you were there. The most popular
tool is the Remote Desktop Protocol. Remote Desktop or RDP for
short. RDP is just the tip of the iceberg but its attractive
enough.
RDP lets you use the PC at your office just like you
were sitting in front of it. Your keystrokes and mouse clicks from
home tunnel through the internet to your office PC. Your office PC
does as its told and displays its screen on your home PC.
All processing is done on the office PC. Just your clicks
and the office PCs image travel back and forth. Your Outlook
correspondence, spreadsheets and documents are at your fingertips
without them ever leaving the office, or you leaving
home.
Imagine getting up extra early on a Saturday morning,
and leaving quietly so you don't wake the family to drive to the
office. You buy convenience store coffee, you look and feel
like hizzle and hope nobody will see you, just to do an hour's worth
of work. Reverse the trip and you're home by noon, you're late for
Tammy's hockey game, and you are in deep shizzle.
Or, sneak
into the den in your PJs and work for an hour while watching
cartoons with a fresh cup of coffee, leaving plenty of time to shoot
pucks off the garage door with Tammy before game time, making you,
the ultimate hero.
Maybe telecommuting isn't for you,
but that's your call, and that's Cocktail Talk. |
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Craig Phillips
CN Consulting, Inc.
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