GoToMac? Citrix to offer Mac Version? [Archive]

MacRumors

May 31, 2005, 01:15 PM

http://www.macrumors.com/images/macrumorsthreadlogo.gif (http://www.macrumors.com)

CBROnline is reporting (http://www.cbronline.com/article_news.asp?guid=7ED8F6E5-610A-4AA7-A638-3C6920ADB78C) that Citrix Systems' software division is considering a Mac counterpart to their popular GoToMyPC software utility.

GoToMyPC allows users to access their Windows PCs remotely. While several similar solutions exist for the Mac -- including Apple's own Remote Desktop (http://www.apple.com/remotedesktop/) -- Citrix's version allows users to remotely access their computers via a web-based client. This allows access from most web-enabled platforms including Mac and Linux PCs.

Regardless, increased interest in the Mac platform by developers can only be seen as a good sign.

narco

May 31, 2005, 01:26 PM

I always hear this advertised on a local talk radio station. The "Tech guy" Leo Laporte on a local radio station (I know he does TV as well) is a known Mac-user, and always talks about this service. I assumed it was Mac compatible, but the website said otherwise. Glad to know it's in the works -- I'd love to not be confined to my computer -- there always seems to be a major problem the second I choose to step out of the "office."

Fishes,
narco.

Doctor Q

May 31, 2005, 01:28 PM

gotomymac.com still goes to gotomypc.com. As the CBROnline story points out, Citrix owns both domain names.

j_maddison

May 31, 2005, 01:31 PM

This is absolutely brilliant. Anyone who votes this as a negative needs their heads read. What an amazing step forward for macs!! Now less of us will have to use wintel lappies for work! hoorah!

jay

d.perel

May 31, 2005, 01:35 PM

"good signs" are always cool :cool:

orion123

May 31, 2005, 01:40 PM

This allows access from most web-enabled platforms including Mac and Linux PCs.

I would hope and assume you'd be able to access your Mac through a Web client on a PC as well. With Citrix you can currently access a remote PC via the Mac so it would be great if this lets you go the other way!

(Go Citrix!)

amberashby

May 31, 2005, 01:43 PM

I've used the PC version before and it works great. Looking forward to a Mac version.

ChrisBrightwell

May 31, 2005, 01:50 PM

Yebot

May 31, 2005, 02:03 PM

What is most significant, IMO, is that GoToMyPC/GoToMyMac uses http(s). So, you can get through firewalls/proxies etc without having your IT staff open up ports for VNC.

FoxyKaye

May 31, 2005, 02:05 PM

I've used the PC version before and it works great. Looking forward to a Mac version.
I'm not - every release of the PC version of Citrix has been a disaster at three different organizations I've worked at whose IT departments implemented it for various reasons.

I fail to see the signicance of this, aside from the "w00t for new developers!" factor.
Agreed - It's always nice to see new developers on board with OS X, but there's folks much higher on my wish-list than Citrix.

Doctor Q

May 31, 2005, 02:06 PM

I fail to see the signicance of this, aside from the "w00t for new developers!" factor.Here's another plus: Having Citrix support for Macs on the server side will add to the acceptance of Macs in corporate environments. It's more of a mindset issue than a technical one.

andiwm2003

May 31, 2005, 02:21 PM

Regardless, increased interest in the Mac platform by developers can only be seen as a good sign.

and why then are there already two negativ ratings :rolleyes:

revjay

May 31, 2005, 02:23 PM

I've used the PC version before and it works great. Looking forward to a Mac version.
I agree...this almost as good as carrying a 'book.

Dippo

May 31, 2005, 02:29 PM

Most VNC servers out there have Java applet interfaces available to them, as well as clients on damn near any platform out there.

I fail to see the signicance of this, aside from the "w00t for new developers!" factor.

Unless of course you have a stupid dynamic IP address that seems to change every couple hours!!!

Steamboatwillie

May 31, 2005, 02:57 PM

Unless of course you have a stupid dynamic IP address that seems to change every couple hours!!!

Dnsart, Dynip, NoIP, etc + a SSH tunnel & VNC. A little leg work up front but works great. I do it all the time. Secure & Reliable.

:cool:

iMeowbot

May 31, 2005, 03:09 PM

Dnsart, Dynip, NoIP, etc + a SSH tunnel & VNC. A little leg work up front but works great. I do it all the time. Secure & Reliable.

:cool:
Some corporations have been disabling outbound ssh connections through their proxies, so that solution no longer always works :mad: (and the solution one endorses, an SSH tunnel service over HTTP kind of like gotomypc imaginatively called ssh-tunnel.com, has only offered a Windows client. :mad: :mad: )

Thirteenva

May 31, 2005, 03:17 PM

I'm not - every release of the PC version of Citrix has been a disaster at three different organizations I've worked at whose IT departments implemented it for various reasons.

Agreed - It's always nice to see new developers on board with OS X, but there's folks much higher on my wish-list than Citrix.

You're confusing Citrix with GoToMyPC. While the company Citrix owns GoToMyPC it is not related to the Citrix mainframe/thin client system commonly used in corporate environments. GoToMyPC was not even developed by them, Citrix purchased GoToMyPC about a year ago. The product is AMAZING, we use it here for the PCs and it is much, much, much better than VNC (which i currently use on my macs). I'd be the first customer when they release it.

Eric_Z

May 31, 2005, 03:22 PM

Now if only Minitab (http://www.minitab.com) could allso be ported to OSX... Then I'd know quite a few people that could be persuaded to swich,.

yellow

May 31, 2005, 03:29 PM

I'd prefer that Citrix updated their ICA client installer for Tiger first. ;)

Object-X

May 31, 2005, 03:46 PM

I was actually impressed with GoToMyPC when I needed to use it once. It worked far better than I expected. The fact that they are porting it to OS X is a very good sign indeed. Apple's marketshare is on the rise and if companies like this think there is money to be made all the better for us.

Steamboatwillie

May 31, 2005, 04:25 PM

Some corporations have been disabling outbound ssh connections through their proxies, so that solution no longer always works :mad: (and the solution one endorses, an SSH tunnel service over HTTP kind of like gotomypc imaginatively called ssh-tunnel.com, has only offered a Windows client. :mad: :mad: )

Yup, I am familiar with that, my solution was to mix up port forwarding on my firewall at home. For example I could use a common port like 80 (incoming) to translate to port 22 on a specific box on my lan at home. Works like a charm. We have a Cisco PIX firewall at work that is locked down like a vice. Doesn't stop me though! :D

nagromme

May 31, 2005, 04:42 PM

How much does it cost on PC? I can see occasional uses for it. (If/when I decide to spend what broadband costs.)

accelman

May 31, 2005, 05:03 PM

Did anyone notice that on gotomypc.com, in their demos, the monitor shown in the videos is a mac monitor (although, I must say, I don't recognize it...) --- look for the apple logo at the top.

FoxyKaye

May 31, 2005, 05:12 PM

You're confusing Citrix with GoToMyPC... GoToMyPC was not even developed by them, Citrix purchased GoToMyPC about a year ago.

Ah, my bad. From my experiences with them, I haven't looked in on the company in a while. Correction noted!

Thanks. :o

yellow

May 31, 2005, 05:14 PM

Did anyone notice that on gotomypc.com, in their demos, the monitor shown in the videos is a mac monitor (although, I must say, I don't recognize it...) --- look for the apple logo at the top.

Hey.... that's a Powerbook G3 screen, if I'm not mistaken. Good catch.

Edit: not ridiculous at all!

nagromme

May 31, 2005, 05:44 PM

I don't have the broadband to see the demos now, but GoToMyPC HAS been usable on a PowerBook for some time--it's connecting to a REMOTE Mac that's new. Is that what the demo showed?

mark6051

May 31, 2005, 05:45 PM

I have used Citrix to access my work PC through my Mac for at least 2yrs now...What is the difference between that and gotomyPC ?

Regards
Mark

yellow

May 31, 2005, 06:43 PM

ah, now I see.. all it takes is a web browser to get to a PC. You can do that from pretty much any browser capable computer.

The difference is, that the GoToMyMac application will allow you to get to your Mac from any other computer, where up until now, all you could do is go to a Windows box.

iMeowbot

May 31, 2005, 07:00 PM

Yup, I am familiar with that, my solution was to mix up port forwarding on my firewall at home. For example I could use a common port like 80 (incoming) to translate to port 22 on a specific box on my lan at home. Works like a charm. We have a Cisco PIX firewall at work that is locked down like a vice. Doesn't stop me though! :D
Ohhhh, that would be nice, if the ISP at home didn't block inbound traffic to the standard webswerver ports (supposedly a response to code red, but couldn't they have lifted it by now?) And the lousy port thieving bums are still the only real broadband option serving the area. Ugh.

sonyrules

May 31, 2005, 08:37 PM

This is a great thing, We used this alot when I worked for Verizon DSL, I NEVER had a problem with this, And it was used on a WIDE VARITY of machine, from windows 95 to windows 2003 server... I hope the mac verision is just as good, This is a very god thing.

nagromme

May 31, 2005, 10:24 PM

OK, here's the pricing info (for the PC version). Sadly, it's a subscription thing. I'd love it if I could pay once and simply need my Mac's IP address, but apparently it doesn't work that way:

One PC: $20/month or $180/year.

Second PC: 50% more.

Third, fourth, etc. PC: by the month it costs more then the second one, by the year it costs less.

https://www.gotomypc.com/pricing.tmpl

$180/year is more than it's worth to me. But it will be neat for those who need it :)

witness

Jun 1, 2005, 04:39 AM

$180/year is more than it's worth to me.
GoToMyPC are just an expensive "middle man", you can do everything that they are offering on Mac and Windows right now for free.

ShiggyMiyamoto

Jun 2, 2005, 09:47 AM

In my experience with VNC-based remote access methods, it has sucked @$$. It would r@pe our DSL's bandwidth, which is only about 256 kbps up. Also, I was lazy to look up how to optimize it, what connection profile to use etc. As we speak, I'm connected to my P2/233 at home that's running XP Pro Corp. Ed. from XP Pro using MS' Remote Desktop Client from school, the remote access that comes with XP. I've found it much more reliable and lag-free than any VNC-based method... but ya never know.. This one might be different. I have an iBook G3/600 that I have with me when I go to school, so I don't suffer on Windoze that often. ^_^

wnurse

Jun 2, 2005, 02:03 PM

Ah, my bad. From my experiences with them, I haven't looked in on the company in a while. Correction noted!

Thanks. :o

The project i work on uses citrix. It works flawlessly. Problems probably due to implemtation at your company. It is not a trivial software. Many things can go wrong in installing and configuring it. I guess we have gotten it right.

kingtj

Jun 3, 2005, 06:51 PM

Well, it's been a few years since I did any Citrix support - but I recall one of the big issues being 3rd. party printer drivers. You had to install them on your Citrix Metaframe servers so people could print to those printers over your network, but a misbehaving one would instantly blue-screen the server when a user tried to send a print job to it. (Lots of HP drivers caused issues. Sometimes you could work around the problem by using a native Microsoft driver for the HP printer in question, but you'd usually lose some advanced printing features. Other times, you just plain had an incompatible printer unless/until HP released a driver that would work in Citrix.)

Generally though, yeah - the product worked well for us, and its ability to remain functional even in low bandwidth conditions was a major reason for its purchase. (Our salespeople could dial in via 56K modem from hotel rooms on their laptops, start Citrix sessions, and use the same desktop environment they were used to seeing back at the office on their desktop PCs.)

The project i work on uses citrix. It works flawlessly. Problems probably due to implemtation at your company. It is not a trivial software. Many things can go wrong in installing and configuring it. I guess we have gotten it right.