iPad Call Home: Remotely Connecting To A Win7 PC

The first question to ask is, 'Why would you want to do this?' It turns out there are possible reasons. How to do it? Desktop Connect for iPad is one solution. It's not perfect but it does work, this reviewer says.

"Some people think the idea of controlling another computer through an iPad is a ridiculous idea—why wouldn’t you just get a laptop and then it’s not even an issue. I can see the argument that using the Apple tablet to spend an extensive amount of time dealing with a remote computer’s interface would be challenging, but I can think of a few reasons you’d want the capability. You might forget to email yourself a document on your desktop hard drive that you want to read or work on using the iPad, or you might want to play a PC-only game that doesn’t rely on split-second fragging (hypothetically speaking, of course).

There are a few apps that make it possible to connect to a Mac or a Windows- or Linux-based PC, falling into two camps. Some are able to use Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP), such as Professional versions of Windows 7, while others need to use Virtual Network Computing (VNC). My fellow ZDNet blogger Jason Perlow has discussed one RDP solution here, but since my primary computer runs Windows 7 Home Premium, I needed to go the VNC route."