Last week I was summonsed to the foyer of a swish waterfront hotel for a meeting with a chap from a very cool service called LogMeIn.

Visiting NZ for a few days to introduce the concept to our brethren in Aotearoa, the briefing didn’t involve a complicated, boring Powerpoint presentation, just a brief chat to explain a simple and effective (yet very 21st Century) concept.

At its simplest level, LogMeIn lets the consumer get remote control of their PC (or Mac) from any other computer with an internet connection.

It’s easy to see the benefits of this, right?

Best of all, the service is absolutely free.

Like most free services, however, you can opt for a higher level of support where you pay a subscription.

The beauty of something like LogMeIn is that it’s simple to set up and because it’s fully encrypted, there are no security issues.

It’s not exactly the infamous “cloud”, but hints at the future with the ability to rove anywhere in the world and still have access to your own PC, wherever you happen to be.

I could blather on about this cool service, which very few Kiwis seem to know about at this point (one of several competing services, LogMeIn is installed in over 70 million computers internationally) but frankly, it’s so simple that anyone interested should just visit www.logmein.com and check it out for themselves.

GARY STEEL