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There’s nothing more frustrating than getting to a destination and realizing that you have left an important file on your desktop at home with no way to access it.

Fortunately, there’s one method of avoiding this problem that can be used on your iPhone, iPad, or any web connected computer — and better yet, it’s free! It’s called LogMeIn, and not only is it available for a huge range of different platforms, it works amazingly.

Today we’ll be taking a look at how LogMeIn works, and also mentioning a few other ways to achieve similar functionality.

The Installation Process

Begin by going to LogMeIn.com and setting up an account. There are varying levels of support, but there is a free option that does all the basics.

Once you’re signed up, download the program on the computer you want to access remotely, then install it on the computer. You can do this with multiple Macs if you like, and even on a Windows machine if you have one. Once that’s done, you’re ready to continue.

Fire up the program on your computer and a window pops up that shows you all of your options. You can initiate desktop sharing if you have a friend or coworker who needs access to your computer, upgrade to a paid account, or just tweak various preferences.

There’s also a little icon that will appear in the menu bar on your Mac as well, allowing you to make changes quickly, or even turn the service off entirely.

Accessing Your Mac Via the Web

Most times that you’re stuck without access to your computer, your options are limited to whatever beige box you can get your hands on.

To access to your computer from another, go to LogMeIn.com and sign in. Next, you’ll see all the computers you’ve installed LogMeIn onto listed on the screen.

Click on the remote control option and after a little bit of Java loading, you’ll see your Mac desktop appear.

From here you can access your computer in its entirety, just as if you are in front of it. The speed can be a touch slow since it’s determined by the internet connection available on both ends, but it works in a pinch.

Mouse around and open programs like you would if you were there, and when you’re done, just close the browser window. It doesn’t get much easier than that!

Mobile Access Options

There are mobile variations of the program as well, available for Windows phones, Android, and of course, the iPad, iPod Touch, and iPhone. It’s known as LogMeIn Ignition, and although it’s a bit pricey at $29.99, the good news is that it’s a universal app for all iOS devices.

The process works the same across the board: Tap the LogMeIn Ignition icon, and then the program fires up. Log in and navigate to the computer you want to control, and just like that, it’s there.

I’ve personally done this dozens of times on my iPhone, and it comes in really handy when you forget something or want to check if an automated process has completed.

That said, the extra real estate on the iPad makes it substantially easier to work with, because even with zooming in on the screen it can still be difficult to work on the iPhone.

Limitations

As with any free program, there are some caveats. LogMeIn works great for accessing your computer, but you can’t do file transfers from the remote computer to the one you’re working on without upgrading to LogMeIn Pro.

With the upgrade you can also listen to iTunes, print documents, and do more advanced IT functions than you can with the free version.

All that said, there are some workarounds. If you want to transfer a file, just open up your e-mail and send the file as an attachment. You can edit an image in Photoshop, just know it’s going to be slow and laggy depending on the connection. And if you have a file sharing program such as Dropbox, you can just drag and drop the file into that and access it via the web on your other computer.

The Alternatives

?Want another way of doing the same thing? Here’s a few other options:

• Remote Desktop Connection for Mac 2 – Comes with every copy of Office 2011 (meaning it’s not free), and only works to connect your Mac to PCs
• Apple Remote Desktop 3 – This comes in at $299 – so it’s not cheap – and is really tailored for the IT crowd with lots of server specific features. It does, however, have a fantastic icon.
• Bonjour Screen Sharing – Free (included with OS X) and allows you to share the screen or desktop of any computer in your Bonjour network that you have the login and password to. This works remotely if you’re a MobileMe subscriber, and is called “Back to My Mac”.
• CoRD – Free, and allows you to access a Windows desktop remotely.

The Verdict

Not everybody needs a way to access their files remotely, but when that first occasion comes up, it really is nice to know that you have a way to do so. In my case, I’ve used LogMeIn to grab photos I forgot to bring with me, check on the status of running programs, and even to work on a program that I didn’t have access to on the road.

For me, I find the best option is to have LogMeIn with me always, because I never know when it will come in handy. I don’t use it often, but the few times I have it’s really saved me from a major problem — and that’s worth its weight in gold.

In today’s interview, we’re talking to Pieter Omvlee of Bohemian Coding. We’ve covered Pieter’s software extensively on AppStorm before, and I’m a huge fan of his notoriously well-designed apps. If you haven’t already, head over to Bohemian Coding and take a look at what’s on offer – particularly if you’re a designer!

Pieter has been kind enough to share a few minutes to talk about the story behind Bohemian Coding, his thoughts on iOS development, how he stays up-to-date with the Mac industry in general, and the hardware and software he uses to get the job done.

I hope you enjoy the interview!

Where did you start out as a Mac developer, and how did you come to form Bohemian Coding?

I started out as a Mac developer about 7 years ago in (shame on me) RealBasic. The first version of my application DrawIt was actually written in it. I found it difficult to learn Objective-C and Cocoa at that time so I kept going back and forth between Xcode and RealBasic. When I went to University the dots suddenly fell into place in the first programming course I took, and never used RealBasic again. First thing I did was completely rewrite DrawIt in Objective-C.

I started selling it at getdrawit.com for lack of a better name but when I got the idea for a second application (Fontcase) it was clear that I needed a proper company name and a generic website etc. Thus Bohemian Coding.

Which of your applications do you, personally, use most often?

That’ll definitely be Sketch. I do lots of UI and website mockups in it and I find it works great for that.

Your applications are notoriously well designed, and widely regarded as being a pleasure to use. Is this interface polish something that you add at the end of the development process, or start considering right from the outset?

Well thanks, that’s a big compliment. I work closely with a few interface / icon designers (Kevin Kalle and Emanuel Sá) and I never ship a feature without involving them. When I start on something new – whether it be a new feature or an application – I wouldn’t start coding before I have a the interaction and UI completely worked out in my head.

Sometimes a wireframe-like idea is enough to get coding, and the real graphics (icons or custom UI elements) can come at a later date. But at other times I feel I need a finished mockup from my designers before I code anything. It depends.

I’m currently working on a completely new version of SketchPad (the iPad version of Sketch). I’m in love with my iPad and it’s now absolutely clear that the UI SketchPad has at the moment (designed before I got my hands on an actual iPad) doesn’t work at all.

I had a vague idea of how I thought we could make the UI a lot better and I went to one of my designers with this vague idea and what he came back with was similar but at the same time an enormous improvement. So in this case the basic interaction-idea is mine but the rest is his idea, whereas in Sketch only the raw icons and custom controls were designed by them.

Tell us a little bit about your Mac setup – what hardware and software do you use to get the job done?

My main machine is an almost 3 year old 8 Core Mac Pro with one of the old 30″ Cinema Displays. I got the display from Apple because of the design award I won for Fontcase. I would never have bought that display myself. I have a first-gen Macbook Air for on the road and have thrown everything of importance in Dropbox. I love Dropbox. The Air is too slow to do any serious work on it, though.

I have a 64BG Wi-Fi iPad that I had a friend buy me in the US as soon as they became available. It’s a great device but I can’t wait to see what the next one will be like. If it has a Retina Display I’ll buy it immediately.

Your personal site mentions that you live in London . Do you feel that being based outside of the USA/Bay area is a disadvantage as a software developer?

I don’t think that’s a real disadvantage. There are quite a few Mac/iPhone developers in the UK and plenty of opportunities to meet up. That said, I’ve never been to the US or a WWDC so I might not know what I’m missing out on.

What has the experience of developing for iOS been like, and are you excited about the possibilities offered by the Mac App Store?

I’m really enjoying developing for iOS. The frameworks are much more modern and they fit better together. The iPad experience is also a lot simpler anyway. There’s so much on the Mac that you don’t even have to think about on the iPad – and that really simplifies development. Think about drag-drop from/to other applications for example. That’s simply not there and one less thing you have to worry about.

The Mac App Store is an exciting new thing for the Mac. I think we had all been expecting it ever since the store opened on the iPhone. It certainly took them a while. As expected, the terms are pretty much the same as on iOS store and that means no trials and upgrade pricing.

I hope they’ll add that possibility, though. Trials are really important I think. I just can’t see myself buying a $50 app without trying it first. The same goes for major updates. If your 1.0 isn’t horribly broken I doubt that users will find the typical 2.0 compelling enough to spend the same amount of money once again.

The banning of private API is expected but really inconvenient. You need it a lot more on the Mac than on the iOS platform. Take WebKit as an example. Apple engineers sometimes even recommend using a certain private API.

I have submitted all my applications and they’re now waiting for approval. I’ll keep selling my applications on my own website as well and if people want a free trial, they can get it there. We’ll see how things develop. Maybe soon all my sales will come from the Mac App Store and I’ll remove my web store completely. We’ll have to see and wait.

Which websites, Twitter users, and magazines do you follow in an effort to stay up-to-date with the activities of other developers, and the Apple eco-system in general?

I get most of my Apple-related news and commentary from Daring Fireball, Shawn Blanc, The Brooks Review, and Marco Arment – those are the first that come to mind. Of course I follow the blogs of quite a few other Mac developers and other more or less random people.

I don’t follow websites like TUAW/TechCrunch/Mac Rumors because they simply post too much stuff. I don’t want (nor have the time) to read all of that. Mac Rumors is particularly annoying as they don’t put the full article in their feed. I don’t want to subscribe to feeds that do that.

I also listed to a lot of podcasts. As to the Mac-related portion of that, I’ve basically subscribed to almost all the 5by5.tv shows. I think they’re well done. I gradually unsubscribed from all the TWiT shows as their shows were getting longer and longer and the interesting content became less and less.

Do you have any interesting updates or apps in the pipeline that you can give us a sneak peak at?

I’ve already mentioned that I’m working a big update for SketchPad. Apart from that, both Fontcase and DrawIt really need a major update so that should keep me busy for a while.

The new SketchPad should bring (almost) all the stuff from the desktop version to the iPad and also make exchanging documents much easier – provided Apple doesn’t fix this themselves before I get to it. It’s a bit too early to share screenshots though.

More About Bohemian Coding

Bohemian coding produce a handful of really useful, thoughtful applications for OS X and iOS. They are:

• Fontcase – Fontcase is a font management application that provides an elegant and powerful workflow to help you organize the fonts you have installed on your system.
• Sketch – Innovative vector drawing for Mac OS X with an infinite canvas.
• Drawit – DrawIt is a vector editing application with support for bitmap-like image filters. Vector editing as well as the filters are completely non-destructive, which means that a vector layer can still be edited even after a stack of filters has been applied.
• Review – If you’re doing iPhone UI design, Review is the quickest way to judge your mockups on an actual device. Review will accurately display your mockups on both Retina and older displays.
• Sketchpad – You can just draw on your iPad with your fingers, it’s that simple. Sketchpad is designed to look as a sketch book and can be treated as such; draw with your fingers and swipe left and right to flip pages.
• Slipcover – SlipCover makes it easy to create custom case icons for all your media files. SlipCover can then easily apply these custom icons to any file, making SlipCover the only application you’ll need for cases.

Thanks, Pieter!

I hope you’ll join me in saying a big thanks to Pieter for taking the time to respond to our questions. I always enjoy gaining an insight into what goes on behind the scenes at fantastic companies such as Bohemian Coding!

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last couple years I’m guessing you’ve heard of Last.fm. On the off chance you haven’t, I’ll give you a quick high-flying overview. It’s a music streaming service (similar to Pandora or Spotify) that goes a little further to make listening to music a real experience and exploration.

Last.fm is a web app, and through their website you are able to access all the features of the streaming service. The website is great, a lot of fun to explore and the only way to really get into Last.fm. But there are times when you don’t want to open another web page just to listen to some music.

SweetFM is an application that functions using the Last.fm stream service without using a browser. Let’s take a look and see how it performs!

Overview

SweetFM is an open source Mac client that integrates with your Last.fm account. It allows you to take advantage of the streaming music service without the need to go to their website. SweetFM provides all the core radio functionality of Last.fm and even throws in a couple of new extras.

Last.fm provides its users a ton of directed information about music, and lets you explore a huge wealth of content – not just listen to music. SweetFM essentially pulls the player (Radio) functionality out. This leaves you with a much cleaner, more basic music listening experience.

Interface

The interface is clean and simple. It is purely and simply a music player, and the interface reflects that. While the Last.fm website can be a bit overwhelming – with almost too much information at times – SweetFM is a nice alternate to that method of listening to the streaming service. The player is small and definitely won’t take over your desktop.

SweetFM opens to show eight ways to listing to your Last.fm music:

The functions of the player are accessible by clicking icons across the top of the window. These become active when they can be used.

Overall, it is a really nice interface. It’s aesthetically pleasing and functional. It really doesn’t feel like you’re listening to streaming music – which I guess is the point.

Functionality

As I mentioned above, SweetFM offers you eight different ways to begin listening to music. You’ll notice the familiar options (from the Last.fm interface) to listen to your library, recommended songs, or search by artist as well.

You can also search by multiple tags to create a station. Last.fm allows its listeners to tag music, and SweetFM will create a station based on multiple tags. There isn’t really anything different from the Last.fm radio interface.

Player

Once a station is chosen, the actual music player will appear. You’ll have all the main interactive features of Last.fm available to you within the player. You can “love” a track if you’d like, tag it, or attach a message to it as well. The stop and next track buttons are also in this area.

And if you’re curious, the connection with your Last.fm account makes SweetFM completely in sync with what you’d see if you logged into the site.

You’ll see all of the songs and stations you’ve recently listened to, along with things like playlists, loved songs, and updates to your listening stats.

Equalizer

One cool feature that SweetFM boasts over the Last.fm website is an equalizer. For some people, this probably doesn’t matter, but for others (like me) it is a very welcome feature. There are 22 presets to choose from and you can also make manual adjustments.

The quality of streaming services is pretty good, but not as good as you would get from an MP3 in your iTunes library – so having an equalizer available to make some audio adjustments is a really solid feature.

Information

All of the info you see in the player is interactive. What I mean by this is that you can click on the artist name (for example) and a Last.fm page will open with all of that artist’s information. The same goes for track and album name. So there is a quick way to jump to more information on the Last.fm website if you feel the need.

The album cover art within the player links you to the iTunes Store. Clicking it will open iTunes, and take you to the store where you can purchase the album if you’d like.

It’s a nice feature – and really a big part of streaming music services in general – so it’s good to see that functionality remain in a desktop application like this.

Controls

One of the frustrations I’ve had with browser based streaming music services is that you can’t use the controls of your Apple Remote or keyboard. SweetFM allows the use of those controls to stop and skip to the next track.

The application aims to make listening to streaming music more of a desktop type (i.e. iTunes) experience and this is one of those features that helps it take a big jump in that direction.

Pricing

SweetFM is a free piece of software. You do, however, need to be a subscribed user of Last.fm to gain access to their API. So there is some cost, but it certainly isn’t a ridiculous amount.

For $3 a month you can take advantage of some cool subscriber features within Last.fm itself, and also tie it to your SweetFM player. Not a bad deal.

Additional Notes

In the process of doing this review I did a bit of research and it seems as though SweetFM used to have some additional functionality that I’m not seeing – most notably the ability to record or export to your iTunes library.

I just can’t for the life of me find this functionality in version 2.0.3. I even found that specific function listed as a feature on the SweetFM GitHub page readme file. Maybe it has been recently removed… I really have no idea.

I wanted to make note of this feature being gone (unless it’s just me) as it seems like a significant one. I will say that it does seem like it could have the potential to be something that Last.fm wouldn’t particularly like.

Conclusion

Last.fm is a super robust streaming music service. In fact, I’d argue that it is actually far more than a simple streaming music service. It provides a wealth of information about the music you’re listening to and makes recommendations based on that information. The space to wander around checking out new music is almost endless.

I’ll be honest, I was a regular Last.fm user up until around two years ago, and have only recently gotten back into it. SweetFM really makes the experience far more enjoyable.

Now with all that said, I will say that the fully immersive Last.fm experience isn’t always what I’m looking for. It can be a bit much, and sometimes I just want to flip on a few of my favourite tunes.

SweetFM is a perfect companion to the full blown Last.fm service. It pulls out and perfects the core part of the service… listening to music.