HiTechHall’s Tech Waves

A tech tale to tell today… Not long ago I received an urgent Skype call from my dad in California telling me that their computer was on it’s last legs. He reported that it took forever to boot up, took as long to shut down and was acting generally very sluggish. I noticed our Skype connection wasn’t very good either,  so I shouted “Go to Crossloop.com and download it” before I heard his response of “okay…” dissolve into unintelligible garble. And then the line went dead.

What’s Crossloop and why would I choose these final words to utter? Well, it’s free software that lets you “take control” of another computer, wherever that computer is, as long as it’s connected to the Internet. So I thought I’d try to fix their computer remotely in this way.

Reduced to using Skype Chat at this point (the Internet connection was pretty weak) he eventually informed me that he’d been successful in downloading Crossloop. As the software was already installed on my machine, I was able to lookup their Crossloop user name and request permission to “access” their ailing PC. Immediately they noticed my request “pop-up” on their computer, and with relief gave permission for me to take control of or “share” it.

A few seconds after they clicked “share,” an image of their computer’s desktop popped up on my laptop’s screen in Bangkok, as though I was sitting in front of their PC at home in San Diego. They sat in awe (or so I’d like to think) as I moved their mouse all over their screen, clicking their icons and typing commands. They actually did comment later that the whole process seemed like “magic.” And to be honest, it still seems a bit like magic to me too!

After about 30-minutes of trouble-shooting in this way, I was able to get their machine to behave nicely again. The source of the problem was too many applications automatically opening at start-up, and then not turning off completely while the PC shutdown… but that’s beside the point: Though you may never have the need (nor the want) to use Crossloop in particular, it’s an example of a growing number of free and easy-to-use applications that allow us to communicate, collaborate and solve problems globally. And as an added bonus, these tools can sometimes even make us believe in a little bit of magic.

Currently, Crossloop works only with PCs. Mac and Linux versions are said to be coming soon.