REMOTE-ACCESS SERVICE GOTOMYPC www.gotomypc.com $14.95 per month

Many people spend time working away from the office, whether at home or on the road. Not everyone has featherweight, superthin notebook computers to take everywhere they go. For a nomad who needs access to an office computer, a borrowed PC with a Web browser can be enough.

GoToMyPC is a software-and-service option for people who want to connect to business PCs from remote locations. It's priced at $14.95 per month for consumers, $49.95 for the enterprise version. To use, download GoToMyPC's client software onto your office computer. Once done, you can access everything on the system from another PC via GoToMyPC's Web site.

One downside is that your computer must be on and connected to a network in order to access it, an approach that raises security concerns. GoToMyPC's answer: end-to-end encryption of the data stream that takes place between a PC and the remote user.

"It might be convenient, but if it wasn't secure, we would be out of business for violating government regulation," says Ed Cross, director of IT with Energy First Credit Union. The credit union began using GoToMyPC more than a year ago to give its CEO remote access while she vacationed.--Tischelle George