Posts Tagged ‘Antecea’
Although I have a great App (Desktop Connect) to remote control my computers from anywhere on the internet, what I didn't have was a simple way to connect to my home file server to grab a file. Yes, this could be accomplished with Desktop Connect and even some of my other Apps, but it would require more steps. There are times where I'm out and about and I want to pull down a file from my Mac OS X Server at home and either work with the file on my iDevice or send the file to someone that needs it. This is what led me to search for a more direct way to access AFP, FTP and SMB servers/NAS boxes remotely.
Files Connect does what I need it to do
As you might expect there are a few different apps that do this. Some ranging in price of $20 and others costing less. Files Connect proves that you don't need the most expensive App on the App store to get the job done. I grabbed it and within about 2 minutes I was securely connected to my OS X Server and able to see all my files and folders. Not only could I download files from the server to my iPad or iPhone, but I could easily print them or share them with others. Perfect! Since I have the necessary ports open on my router to be able to access my server from the internet, I now have access to terabytes and terabytes of my files from anywhere I happen to be in the world all in the palm of my hand.
An Added Benefit
Files Connect works in the other direction too. You can turn your iDevice into a file server for others to access your content. I really don't have a need for this, but it's nice to know that it's possible if I need to do it. Files Connect also supports Bonjour, this makes it easy for the App to discover available network resources on your LAN without having to know the specific IP addresses. The App is also rather speedy. It seems as fast if not faster than accessing the same folders using my Mac. I really like the Bookmarks folder to drag commonly accessed nested folders to to speed up access.
It sees your printers too. Not only does it support iOS native printing, but it sees your CUPS printers too.
A cool test that worked
As a photographer I store my RAW files in Adobe DNG format. This format isn't natively supported on the iPad therefore there's really no way to preview them natively. However, there are apps that will open and work with DNG files like Photogene. I used Files Connect to download one of my DNGs from my Server and used the Open In command to open it in Photogene for iPad. It worked! Very cool! Files Connect will of course preview the files that are supported natively such as JPG, MOV, PDF, etc. It even has a movie player built-in.
The Bottom Line
If you have a file server running SMB, AFP, FTP, SFTP, or webDAV protocols and you want to access those files from your iPad, iPhone or iPod touch, then this App is for you. The only thing stopping me from giving this app a 5 star rating is that it did quit a couple of times upon launching. Otherwise it works very well.
You can get Files Connect for $7.99 here from the 
Macs and Windows PCs have the ability to control other Macs and PCs via VNC and Microsoft's Remote Desktop Protocols. The Mac has this built-in using the Mac OS X Sharing features (VNC) and it's a quick and easy download to enable this on the PC as well. Desktop Connect allows you to use your iPad to control either a Mac or PC on your network or over the internet wirelessly. I use this functionality from time to time to check the status of a process running on a Mac in the other room or on another floor or even from across the world when I'm traveling. Perhaps it's a video render or a download/upload that requires further attention once it's done.
With Desktop Connect I can not only see my Mac, but I can control it too
I've used other VNC compliant Apps on the iPad, but I must say that I'm very impressed with Desktop Connect's user interface. It quite frankly blows away everything else I've tried to date. The interface is full featured and easy on the eyes too. I also love the fact that you can setup and it remembers multiple computers to control. For example, I have the necessary ports open on my router and directed to my Mac mini Server to control it from anywhere I happen to be in the world. However, when I'm home I also from time to time control my MacBook Pro from afar. Just yesterday I was monitoring a clone backup from a distance directly on the iPad. I found the setup to be pretty straight forward and easy to get going. I haven't tried this to control a PC, but if the setup is anywhere near as easy as it was on the Mac you'll be up and running with an encrypted connection in no time. Another use case for this is to run technologies in your desktop's web browser that aren't available on the iPad like Adobe Flash or Java apps. Although I've got a screen shot above of Photoshop CS5 running on my MacBook Pro, let me level set expectations here. There is a small lag from the time you tap something until it refreshes your iPad display. This is normal for this type of connection. So don't run off after reading this thinking you'll be doing all your photo retouching, page layout and video editing from the beach on your iPad. Although I can run an App like Photoshop remotely, I would only use this to do some quick and basic things. I would NOT want to do this for any extended period of time. The lag would drive me insane and it's just not designed to turn your iPad into a "terminal". Think of it more as you need to click a button, run a command, launch an App, look something up, drag and drop something from here to there. Perhaps you left a file at home that you need and you want to login and email it to yourself. Those are the kinds of quick things that this is well suited for. That being said, this is by far the best App I've seen in this category. I love the buttons at the top that give you quick access to an expanded keyboard with the keys you'd want such as CTRL, Command, Option/Alt, etc. as well as a mouse that you can tap to change from left click to right click, etc.
You can get Desktop Connect here from the
