What You Need To Know About Telecommuting

By Ian Bell February 9, 2005

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“Since the goal of telecommuting is to make your connection at home as transparent as possible when online at work, several protocols have become popular to permit this kind of access. There are two main factors that must be balanced; speed and security. When I first started to work from home in 1982 the means to connect was primitive. I had a 2800 baud modem, which I later upgraded to 56kbs and with the then-new Windows 3.0, the screen at home slowly painted whenever I clicked my mouse. Today’s software is almost instantaneous with its responsiveness. Back then the method to provide security and connectivity was a peer-client software package. While mostly superseded by direct protocols, Symantec still carries PC-Anywhere in its catalog of software. With this package you are required to have a copy running in host mode at work and the program in client mode to connect. This requires installation of the software on any machine you want to connect to or work from. While this used to be the most popular method of remote computing, many companies are now opting for a more direct approach. “

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