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LogMeIn goes disk -- and saves my weekend

by Erica Sadun Jun 21st 2011 at 4:00PM

Ages ago, we posted about LogMeIn's new file management and transfer capability. It wasn't until this weekend that it sunk in how utterly brilliant this feature is.

Look at me. I'm a parent to a teenager. (Yes, there's proof.) When visiting Fort Collins over the weekend, disaster struck. I'd copied over the new "9 Lives of Chloe Whatsherface" to the iPad, but I'd forgotten to transfer that all-essential "Teen Wolf."

Horrors.

LogMeIn to the rescue. With its remote disk features, it gave me total access to my home computer, including the Teen Wolf episode that my EyeTV 250 had recorded for us, which I easily copied to the iPad.

You can browse your entire computer. In my case, that included the external drive I use for EyeTV recordings. Just select the file you need and tell LogMeIn where to transfer it to. There's a complete local file hierarchy you can use within the application, and it works far better than it sounds.

Once there, iOS 4's app-to-app document sharing let me move it over to VLC (yes, I am lucky enough to have downloaded it before bad things happened) so that my child could revel in, well, whatever there is to revel in with regards to Teen Wolf.

LogMeIn Ignition for iPad retails at a hefty thirty bucks, which may put you off from buying it. But if you can swing the cash, between its excellent "give me my home computer on my iPad" features and now its file transfer update, it can really deliver some power-hitting performance.

As for the Cat-versus-Dog smackdown? My teenager far preferred Chloe, even with her risible fake claws[1].

Update: Commenters ask: "Why didn't you use Air Video". I adore Air Video and recommend it highly. We needed her to watch in the car while on the go, on a Wi-Fi only iPad. For the record, as a quick google will show, I have been using LogMeIn on my iPad for well over a year.

TUAW is commonly provided with not-for-resale licenses or promo codes to permit product evaluations and reviews. For more details, see our policy page. Promo code requests are not guarantees of reviews.

[1] It's never too early to start SAT prep



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26 Comments

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Cody Bromley

Thought I'd come check this post to find a promo code for LogMeIn. Guess I'm early, or maybe I missed it.

August 22 2011 at 5:45 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Moises Martinez

I love competition, everybody rush to improve and be ahead :)

August 22 2011 at 5:12 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
RumTurkey

How about a book, like with paper and ink?

June 22 2011 at 4:04 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
David Ethell

I, too, find LogMeIn Ignition indispensable, but has anyone else been having major disconnect issues lately? Over the last several months my disconnect problems have been getting progressively worse to the point that I almost can't use LogMeIn anymore. If I stay connected for 5 minutes that's a good session now.

June 22 2011 at 5:58 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Bavich

In that case what it's the best option to wake up (Wake on Land) my iMac from a remote location with the iPad or iPhone?
Tks

June 22 2011 at 3:32 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Joey Mendoza

Dyndns and enable file sharing on the computer. Access all your stuff from via SSH you can even VNC to it.

June 21 2011 at 6:57 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
James

Combining LogMeIn Ignition with Dropbox works for me. If I need a file on my work or home computer, I just use Ignition on my iPad to access it, drag the file I want into Dropbox, and then access it via the Dropbox app on the iPad.

June 21 2011 at 5:31 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
baker.rk@me.com

Your always saying AirVideo is so great and here we are - the most perfect instance for Air Video - and your telling us how great LogMeIn is?

Any VNC app could have moved the media file to your Air Video designated folder then you could have streamed it instantly - without waiting to copy the whole file locally.


In the situation in this post i would have logged in remotely using iTeleport (much cheaper without the gimmicky disk drive stuff) and moved the episode into my 'TV Shows' folder. I'd then open up Plex and instantly stream the episode from start to finish. After i was finished i might have even streamed one of my other 1000 films or 100 TV series i had 'left at home'.

I guess this post is a 'Thankyou LogMeIn for my "review" copy of your app' rather than an honest post. i'd like to believe the real Erica would stream that file using Air Video and maybe even AirPlay to a network connected Apple TV to watch it on the big screen or hey - even AirPlayed it to a network connected Mac running Banana TV?

June 21 2011 at 5:12 PM Report abuse +1 rate up rate down Reply
2 replies to baker.rk@me.com's comment
Rdnymllnsktr

+1 AirVideo was a better option, and would've been a quicker solution here.

She could've even temporarily added the folder it was in to AirVideo.

June 21 2011 at 5:20 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Dave Caolo

I'm certain "the real Erica," being the real Erica, did just what the real Erica would do. I assure you this post is an honest assessment of LogMeIn, written to share an example of a useful feature that could benefit our readers.

June 22 2011 at 8:55 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
devr

Although many would point out that video streaming applications are better suited to the above task, fetching media vs streaming it does have some uses (e.g. grabbing media while your at a wifi access point, to use later). The utility of this feature is surely more extensible than the above usage example illustrates. No doubt this could also be used to grab spreadsheets, presentations, and more-- granting added accessibility to documents for which we users might have difficulty anticipating the need.

That said, as we move further into integrated mobile device cloud storage, I can see this method of user data transfer being rapidly obviated by ubiquitous access to documents with automatic version control from all platforms. We're practically there with iOS5.

Access to documents via transfer protocol integrated into vnc/rdp software may seem great now, just as fetching water from a nearby well is preferable to walking down to the river, but very soon the cloud supported 'on-tap' access to all our information will similarly relegate such features as this to obscurity.

June 21 2011 at 5:08 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to devr's comment
baker.rk@me.com

I'm glad you wrote that last paragraph.

If services such as Dropbox, box.net, sugarsync and soon iCloud didn't exist then this LogMeIn 'feature' might actually be truly useful.

June 21 2011 at 5:16 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
2 replies to baker.rk@me.com's comment
dorjesyber

Not really. It's not super hard to setup a home network to allow access to a shared network folder. I've used iTeleport and then GoodReader to get back to my Mac an access select shared folders.

Personally this is why I think the iCloud is just daft. Now if iCloud also acted as a Dynamic DNS server then we'd be talking.

June 21 2011 at 6:01 PM Report abuse rate up rate down
Wayne Luke

It is still useful if you can't put all your documents or media library on said services. I have over 600 movies and television shows covering over a terabyte of storage. Much cheaper to store it at home and access it directly.

My documents library is over 50 Gigabytes. One directory contains very important documents that are direct scans of high resolution proofs and measure in the megabytes. I also have every email going back to 2000 stored on my computer. Cloud is nice for recent things but direct access to the machine is what works for access to everything.

June 21 2011 at 7:17 PM Report abuse rate up rate down
Rdnymllnsktr

I have the VLC app, and it doesn't allow me to transfer movies from other apps that support that option...

June 21 2011 at 4:52 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to Rdnymllnsktr's comment
dorjesyber

Really? Are you sure you are not trying to send it formats it doesn't understand? I send FLV and WMV files from GoodReader and iFile to VLC all the time. They don't stay in VLCs menu, although they do build up in the Inbox folder, which you can clear by using iTunes.

Perhaps try removing it then re-syncing it to your iDevice. It could be that whatever "Open In..." plist file that stores that list may have gotten corrupted and you just need to give it a swift kick in the Re-Sync.

June 21 2011 at 6:07 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to dorjesyber's comment
Rdnymllnsktr

I'll try again...

June 21 2011 at 6:09 PM Report abuse rate up rate down
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