Tikkabik

Apple Remote Desktop lets you remotely control, audit and install software on networked Macs throughout your LAN or WAN. And while it's obviously of the most use to Mac-toting system administrators and network managers in corporate and educational settings, it comes in really handy in the house as well. We've added it to our household computer arsenal, and I'm very happy with the outcome.

My eight-year-old, for example, tends to abuse his computer-using privileges. He's got an aging Power Mac in his bedroom, and while it's perfectly feasible for me to install various third-party utility software to restrict his online and application use, I'd prefer not to. For one thing, it's more software for me to administer. For another, I'd rather he knows that I have the ability to keep an eye on what he's doing, even if I don't use that ability all the time.

This morning was a perfect example. He was asked to clean his room prior to going to a friend's birthday party. Bob chose instead to play some video games. He was being sneaky about it, so I fired up Remote Desktop from my own Powerbook and observed what game he was playing. I sent him a message telling him to do his chores (ARD has a messaging capability built in). A few minutes later, he still wasn't doing as he asked, so this time I took control of his system remotely and quit the game myself, sending a more forceful message (and reinforcing it with a quick yell up the stairs too).

Yesterday I upgraded some out of date application software on my wife's iMac remotely, and I've audited all the machines in the house to make sure no one has installed software they shouldn't have (and, as it turns out, my precocious 8-year old had installed software he shouldn't have).

At $300 for a 10-user pack, Apple Remote Desktop (ARD) is something that's priced out of reach for a lot of households. If I was still doing system administration at a Mac-based company, however, this would be cheap and indispensible. An unlimited-use pack costs only $200 more. That's ridiculously easy to justify to management.

Panther already comes with an ARD client pre-installed; all you need to do is configure some sharing settings to get it to work with a machine that has the administration software installed. I'd love to see Apple create a "Remote Desktop Express" or "iRemote" product for consumers who need some of these functions at a more streamlined price, perhaps with a smaller license (5 machines should do for a lot of people, for example).

As the number of computers in wired households increase, this is bound to be a more pressing issue, even for non-geek moms and dads: Parents who'd rather spend more time seeing the computers they've invested in actually used, rather than fooled around with.