LogMeIn connects you to your desktop from anywhere in the world. What a rush!

The iPhone is a small computer in your pocket. But what if you need access to your actual computer--the one you left at home or the office? Maybe there's a file you need to view, a program you need to run, or even a machine that needs troubleshooting. Whatever the case, LogMeIn Ignition makes that connection from afar.

The iPhone version of the popular remote-desktop service accesses your system (or a consenting friend's) remotely. Once connected, you get complete control over the machine, just as though you were sitting in front of it. Of course, you have to operate within the crowded confines of the iPhone's smallish screen and work without a physical keyboard or mouse. LogMeIn offers good alternatives to those devices, and except for a few bugs and input issues, it expertly handles virtual networking computing (VNC).

You'll need to install software on the remote computers, then enter your LogMeIn password and computer password to connect. An on-screen keyboard easily translates key input, and Windows users can send Alt-Tab and Ctrl-Alt-Del commands. However, we couldn't get similar application-swapping and force-quit commands to work on Macs.

Mouse control is trickier. By default, LogMeIn employs a screen-moving method; the mouse pointer stays fixed in the center of the iPhone, and the desktop scrolls underneath it as you drag around with your finger. To click a menu on the remote computer, you drag the menu to the pointer rather than the pointer to the menu. It sounds backwards, but it's effective in practice. (Or you can switch to a traditional mouse-movement style.)

You can zoom in and out on the desktop with quick, familiar finger-pinches. The only real navigation problem is scrolling within documents; you're supposed to use a "two-finger drag" to approximate a mouse wheel, but we just couldn't get this to work well.

We also encountered frequent "low memory" messages when starting LogMeIn, and the program often crashed shortly after connecting to our remote desktop. Fortunately, an iPhone reboot seemed to solve these issues, at least temporarily.

LogMeIn Ignition supports Edge, 3G, and Wi-Fi connections, and in our tests it worked smoothly over all three (though EDGE was a bit sluggish at times). Even with the bugs, it's an incredibly handy tool for your iPhone arsenal.