About Remote Control Feature

What is Remote Control?

Remote Control is an exciting new feature available only in Ghost Control Pro. It allows you to send instructions to your computer while you are away. You can easily order your computer to do specific actions by itself with a single SMS message from your cell phone!

How does it work?

It works in a very simple way. Instructions are sent as regular email messages. First, You must have an email account that is accessible via pop3 server in order to set up a Remote Control feature on your computer. Second, You must have at least one control saved (under controls tab) in order to send a remote instruction. For example if you have a control named "Shut down" you can easily send a remote instruction using your cell phone telling your computer that control "Shut down" needs to be executed.

First you must set up some parameters so Ghost Control can periodically connect to your email pop server and check if there are some remote instructions waiting to be received from the server. When Ghost Control successfully connects to your pop server it will only download email messages where the subject line is: "gcinst" as it stands for Ghost Control Instruction. Ghost Control will not download or do any other actions with the rest of your email messages on the server.

Setting up a Remote Control Feature

Under Options tab, click on the Remote Control Settings button. Click "Enable Remote Control on this computer". Now you can enter your pop server name, username and password you are using to connect to your email server (just as you enter it when configuring Outlook Express application). Click "Test connection" button first and then click OK. If you entered server name, username and password correctly there should be no problems. You can click on "Advanced Options" button to select default checking period which specifies how often Ghost Control will connect to the server and check if new instructions have arrived. The default value for that is 10 min.

How to send a Remote Instruction?

There are some rules you need to follow when sending a remote instruction to make sure you are sending a valid instruction that can be executed correctly.

1) Subject of the message must be: "gcinst" (without quotes offcourse, gcinst stands for GhostControlINSTruction)

2) Message text of an instruction must begin and end with # character

Syntax of a Remote Instruction

Usage: #run [-idle : -whenidle] [-pinxxxx] <ghostcontrolname>#

Parameters:

"run" : run keyword MUST be the first word in a Remote Instruction, right next to # character

"-idle" : Ghost Control will execute instruction only if computer is idle for 5 minutes (only if no keyboard or mouse activity was detected during last 5 minutes). If someone is using a computer in a moment of Remote Instruction arrival nothing will happen.

"-whenidle": Ghost Control will execute a Remote Instruction immediately if computer is idle for 5 minutes. If computer is not idle Ghost Control will wait until the computer is idle for 5 minutes and then execute a control.

"-pinxxxx": If you have the PIN protection option enabled, when sending a Remote Instruction make sure you include this parameter in your Remote Instruction. "xxxx" represents your 4-digit PIN and only the instructions authorized with correct PIN will be executed.

Examples

Here i will give you a few examples of remote instructions sent via email message.

Example 1:

#run shutdown#

Assuming that subject of the email is "gcinst" this example shows a simple way to tell your computer that control shutdown needs to be executed immediately.

Example 2:

#run -idle shutdown#

This is an example with an "-idle" parameter. It tells your computer that control shutdown needs to be executed but only if nobody is currently using a computer (no mouse or a keyboard activity was detected in last 5 minutes). If somebody is using a computer at the moment of instruction arrival nothing will happen.

Example 3:

#run -whenidle shutdown#

If computer is idle at the moment of the arrival of this Remote Instruction, Ghost Control will execute control shutdown. If computer is not idle in a moment of Remote Instruction arrival Ghost Control will wait until the computer is idle for 5 minutes and then execute the control named shutdown.

Example 4:

#run -idle -pin1234 shutdown#

If you are using the PIN protection (4 digit number) you must also include your PIN when sending a remote instruction. The syntax is as shown in example 4. PIN protection is used to protect your computer from executing incoming instructions sent by a third party.

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