October 8 - 10:40am EDT   RealVNC has announced an update to VNC Enterprise Edition, its remote access software for Mac, Windows and Unix systems. The program is used to assume (authorized) control of another computer, regardless of its operating system. The upcoming release introduces support for a variety of cellphones, including the iPhone, all of which will be able to control a computer. Moreover, system administrators will be able to manage a corporation's phones through VNC. [full story]

April 4 - 7:50pm EDT   DEVONtechnologies has released Desktop Transporter 2.6 a new version of its remote maintenance and management solution for users who administrate multiple Macs across a network. The new release shows constantly updated thumbnails of all shared desktops on the local network. The update frequency can be adjusted and the list of shared desktops filtered. Desktop Transporter 2.6 also uses server-side scaling and clipping for reducing network load and for increasing responsiveness. Keychain support makes it unnecessary to remember all the passwords for the shared machines. Desktop Transporter 2.6 requires Mac OS X 10.3.9 later and a fast LAN and/or Internet connection is ... [full story]

March 12 - 10:55am EDT   The Back to My Mac remote networking option, normally only available with a paid subscription to Apple's .Mac service, can in fact be imitated for free, writes one columnist. Users begin by enabling File and Screen Sharing under System Preferences, and then clicking the Options button to expand file sharing to FTP. After some router configuration, users must run the distant computer's Screen Sharing app, located under "System/Library/CoreServices" in Leopard, and enter the external Internet address of the home/work computer. [full story]

December 18 - 11:45am EST   Redstone has released v3.0 of two interrelated programs, Vine Viewer and Vine Server. Viewer is a client-side application that allows users to access and control computers anywhere in the world, so long as they are connected to a matching Virtual Network Computing (VNC) server such as the Vine equivalent; this gives people the ability to administrate or troubleshoot systems regardless of their operating system. [full story]