You might be able to get at the desired file if you have previously uploaded it to an online storage or photo-sharing service, or emailed it to yourself. But, in many cases, you could be stuck.

Now Dell (DELL), the big computer maker, is aiming to solve that problem with a new service called Dell Remote Access. Despite the name, the service can be installed on any brand of Windows PC running Windows XP or Windows Vista to make its files remotely accessible, as long as it has a broadband connection. You can transfer, or stream, or share these files with others. You can even remotely use the host computer’s Web camera.

And some of the service’s functions also work even if your remote device is one of Apple’s (AAPL) Macintosh computers or iPhones, or a computer powered by the Linux operating system, like Dell’s own Mini netbook.

For basic functionality — making the files on one Windows PC remotely accessible from other devices — Dell Remote Access is free. If you want to use its advanced functions, like the ability to remotely control the host PC or to access other devices on your home network, it costs $9.95 a month, or $99 a year. This paid version of the service also includes the ability to share with others access to files or to devices on your network, such as stand-alone Web cameras.

You only need to install special software on the host PC whose files are to be remotely accessed. For basic file access, the remote devices require just a Web browser and a password to tap into the host computer. You can download the software, and get started with the service, at dellremoteaccess.com.

I’ve been testing Dell Remote Access for a few days, at home and on the road, and found that it works well, despite a few glitches and limitations. It’s not revolutionary — many other services and software programs do part or all of what it does, with varying degrees of technical difficulty and at varying fees — but Dell Remote Access combines a wide variety of functions into a fairly simple package. It will be available as a preinstalled option on Dell’s PCs later this year.

Dell also is hoping it will give a boost to sales of its Mini line of very small machines with limited internal storage for files.

For my tests, I installed Dell Remote Access on my home Dell desktop, an XPS One model running Windows Vista. The installation was easy and quick, except for one oddity: To use the new service, you have to uninstall a network diagnostic utility Dell installs on its machines, called Dell Network Assistant. Since I had little or no use for the utility, this was no big loss, but if you rely on it, this conflict could pose a problem.

Next, I used the Remote Access software to select folders I wanted to make remotely accessible. By default, the program assumes you want to share your documents, music and pictures folders, but I added some others. The software tests your network connection to let you know how well it’s likely to work.

I used a variety of remote devices to access this home Dell. These included a Sony (SNE) Vaio laptop running Vista, a Mac laptop and an Apple iPhone. I even tried accessing the Dell machine from a virtual Windows XP installation running on the Mac.

Some of these tests were conducted from within my home network and others were conducted from across the country.

In general, the tests went well. With the Sony laptop, and within Windows XP running on the Mac, I was able to view photos and slide shows, and stream music and videos, from the Dell in all locations. I opened Microsoft Office (MSFT) files and PDF files remotely and transferred files to the remote machines. I was even able to remotely control the Dell at decent speeds and use the Dell’s built-in camera.

The only annoyance was that every time you want to remotely control the host machine, you must download and install a small utility. You also have to leave on your home computer.

Dell’s system provides more limited functionality if your remote machine is a Mac using Apple’s operating system, or a Linux machine or a mobile phone. With these setups, you can only view, stream or transfer files only from the main host computer. You can’t do remote control or view cameras.

But these limited functions did work pretty well on the Mac and the iPhone, although in some cases I had to first download a song to the Mac before it would play, rather than simply streaming it directly from the Dell.

But Microsoft Word documents stored on the Dell opened right up on the Mac. It was particularly impressive to be able to view a document or photo stored on the Dell from an iPhone thousands of miles away.

Dell Remote Access is a worthy service that’s worth a try.

Find all of Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos online, free, at the All Things Digital Web site, walt.allthingsd.com. Email him at mossberg@wsj.com.

Forget next month. It’s more fun thinking about what digital toys Apple might be making in five years. Of course, Mr. Jobs’s penchant for secrecy means such predictions are often little more than daydreaming. Just do an Internet search for “Apple” and “mockup” to see photos of products invented by Apple fans.

Forrester Research (FORR) is the latest to look into the crystal ball in a new report that imagines the Apple products of 2013. But rather than predict Apple jet packs or other outlandish new directions, the research firm uses the company’s recent history as a guide to forecasting.

Forrester’s conclusion: While much of Apple’s great successes have been mobile products such as the iPod and the iPhone, the company will seek to colonize rooms throughout the home.

Among the new products Forrester predicts Apple will create are wall-mountable digital picture frames with small high-definition screens and speakers that wirelessly play media, including photos, videos and music, stored on a computer elsewhere in the home. Such products already exist, but Apple could put its own twist on them — for example, by adding its design panache and a touch-sensitive screen that lets viewers flip from image to image with a finger swipe, a la the iPhone.

For the bedroom, Forrester envisions an Apple “clock radio” that pipes in music and other media across a home network. Possible, too, is an “AppleSound” universal remote control, also with a touch-sensitive screen, that lets users browse their music collections and change the songs playing through their stereo as they stroll around the house. This latter technology is already available in primitive form through an application called Signal (www.alloysoft.com) that turns the iPod touch and the iPhone into remote controls for Apple’s iTunes program.

Forrester also thinks Apple could extend into the home the technical assistance currently offered by “Genius Bar” personnel in Apple retail stores. Apple in-home installation services will become especially important as its array of products for the home grows. “The complexity level here can be quite daunting if you have five or six of these different devices,” says J.P. Gownder, one of the Forrester analysts who wrote the report.

An Apple spokeswoman declined to comment on the company’s product plans.

Apple prognosticating is such a popular pastime, in part, because Mr. Jobs has proved so adept at becoming a power broker in markets a Silicon Valley computer company — once known as Apple Computer — has no right to dominate. The iPod remains the top MP3 player, with more than 70% of the market, and Apple is now the top retailer of music in the nation, ahead of Wal-Mart (WMT) Stores. Less than a year after entering the cellphone business with the iPhone, Apple became the second-largest provider of smart phones in the U.S.

That said, the company had an underwhelming foray into the living room with a television set-top device called Apple TV that plays music, photos and movies downloaded from the Internet and PCs on a home network. In an interview earlier this year after dropping the price on the product by $70 to $229, Mr. Jobs said he was disappointed in its sales.

Despite the hiccups, veteran observers of Apple say Mr. Jobs’s intent is clear. “I see everything Steve is doing as positioning himself to take over completely the living room,” says John Seely Brown, a visiting scholar at the University of Southern California and the former director of Xerox’s PARC, the Palo Alto, Calif., research center that inspired some of the innovations of the original Macintosh.

One long-running prediction, proved wrong again and again: that Apple might make a television set. Forrester throws cold water on the idea. Yet some still believe that Apple will one day get into the business as conventional TV makers start to integrate into their sets the ability to surf the Web. Apple already designs computer displays that are as large as some HDTVs.

Steve Wozniak, the co-founder of Apple with Mr. Jobs, says it would make “a lot of sense” for Apple to do a television set that can also access media stored on the Internet and local PCs. “I only started thinking that way recently,” Mr. Wozniak says. “Apple is obviously in the world of delivering display devices already.”

Mr. Brown thinks Apple could simplify the traditional functions on TV sets, like the bewildering electronic programming guides that list the hundreds of channels available to viewers. “Most people find operating high-quality TV systems incredibly awkward,” he says. “They’re as bad as our computer systems.”

• Send comments to Nick.Wingfield@wsj.com. Walter S. Mossberg will return on June 5.

Time Machine is a key selling point for Leopard and the Mac. It is more complete, and yet simpler, than the built-in backup feature in Vista Home Premium, the most popular home version of Windows.

But Time Machine has a major drawback: It works much better on desktop Macs than on laptop models. That’s because it’s primarily designed to operate with backup hard drives you connect directly to the computer. And it’s a pain to plug a backup drive into a laptop, which can move around the house. While Time Machine will work with a remote hard disk under certain circumstances, that option requires a second Mac running Leopard, a costly condition.

Now, Apple (AAPL) has attempted to fix the problem with an unusual new companion product called Time Capsule. This is a $299 stand-alone networked gadget that packs both a giant hard disk and a speedy Wi-Fi wireless router into one slender case. It just plugs into your existing home network, and any laptop within wireless range can connect to it. It can back up multiple computers.

Time Capsule is designed to seamlessly work with Leopard’s Time Machine. But it can also be used as a wireless Internet connection, and/or a remote hard drive, for manually storing and retrieving files by Windows PCs running either Vista or Windows XP, or by Macs running Apple’s older Tiger operating system. And you can also use it with certain other backup programs, such as the ones built into Windows XP or Tiger.

In my tests over the past week, Time Capsule worked well in all of these scenarios. However, Time Capsule isn’t meant to do as many different tasks as some other networked drives.

Apple stresses that Time Capsule is a limited, targeted device meant primarily for backup — especially with Time Machine — and as a wireless base station. Unlike some other networked storage devices, like Hewlett-Packard’s MediaSmart home server, Time Capsule doesn’t allow users to simultaneously stream music or videos to multiple PCs, to easily access its contents via the Web or to stream videos to TV sets.

The $299 Time Capsule model comes with a 500 gigabyte hard disk inside, and there’s also a $499 model with hard disk that can hold one terabyte of data, or roughly 1,000 gigabytes. Both models use the same “n” class of Wi-Fi, the fastest version with the longest range. Both also work with computers equipped with the older “g” and “b” versions of Wi-Fi.

You can buy networked hard disks in these sizes for less money and simply use them with your existing Wi-Fi router. However, Time Machine won’t work with them, according to Apple. The company says the only standalone networked hard disk Time Machine can use is Time Capsule.

In my tests, Time Capsule performed perfectly with Time Machine. It also was easily recognized by several of my Windows machines running Vista and Windows XP. On all of these machines, I was able to speedily access the Internet via Time Capsule. Time Capsule can be set up to either replace or supplement your existing Wi-Fi router.

All the machines, even the Windows ones, also could recognize the Time Capsule as a remote hard disk, and save files to it and retrieve files from it. For instance, I manually copied a song, a photo and a Word document from a Mac laptop running Leopard onto the Time Capsule. On a Dell running Vista, I then opened the Time Capsule and launched that same Word document in the Windows version of Word, opened the photo in Vista’s Photo Gallery program, and played the song in Windows Media Player. This same process worked in reverse.

Apple doesn’t guarantee that Time Capsule will work with all backup programs. But it says it will work with the backup software built into Tiger and will likely work with some other backup software.

In my tests, the built-in backup program in Windows XP Pro worked fine with Time Capsule. But the built-in backup program in Vista failed. Microsoft said the problem I encountered was due to a new Vista security feature for backups that foils some remote hard disks, not just Apple’s.

Setting up Time Capsule was easy, using a step-by-step utility program that Apple supplies in both Mac and Windows versions. The device has a USB port that can be used to add either an additional hard disk or a networked printer. And it can be connected to a network via a wired connection if you don’t want to use its wireless functionality.

If you use Time Machine on a Mac laptop, then Time Capsule’s $299 price is money well spent. If you don’t, there are cheaper or more versatile solutions to the backup problem.

• Email me at mossberg@wsj.com. Find all my columns and videos online, free, at the new All Things Digital Web site, http://walt.allthingsd.com.

The latest versions of the devices are getting smaller in size, compared with the old ones, and have more features. You can use them to scan photos, ID cards and checks, among other things — just so the item is no more than slightly bigger than card size.

I have been testing two products: the OptiCard 821 from Plustek Technology, of Cerritos, Calif., and the IRISCard Pro 4, from Belgium-based Image Recognition Integrated Systems, or I.R.I.S.

Plustek’s OptiCard 821

I found that both scanners have a quick and easy way to organize business-card information, but their software isn’t as easy to work with when manipulating the resulting digital images. Also, the machines work best at their originally intended task, and so are better at scanning business cards than at scanning photos, for example.

The software in both devices, overall, created clear images of the names and numbers from most of the typical cards; that is, those cards written with dark ink against a light background. The scanners did a poor job when they had to read cards that were printed on dark-colored stock.

Installing the software was easy enough, and took only a few minutes. After inserting the software CD into your computer, small pop-up windows open to guide you through the process. When the installation is finished, you connect the scanner to your computer’s USB port with the cord provided.

To begin scanning, you just feed the cards into a front slot on the devices and push the scan button. The scanners pull the cards across the scanning head and spit them out the back, saving the cards in the process.

The first time you use the scanners you will be asked to calibrate them to set the parameters for color, shadows and light. It’s an easy task: You just insert a special card that comes with the packages.

The scanners’ software can recognize and categorize cards written in several languages, including Spanish, French, German, Italian, Arabic and Chinese. Scanning a business card using either machine didn’t take more than five seconds; photo-scanning took much longer.

Both machines have two buttons on the top for scanning and for further customizing the scan. The scan buttom has a few standard configurations for capturing the image from the card and transforming it into a PDF file.

The custom button begins with the same process, but then allows you to manipulate the results. When I inserted a card into one of the scanners and pressed the custom button, a window pop-up opened for me to choose details such as language, color, dimensions, the specific file to which I wanted to send the image and the storage format.

You can edit the cards as you store them and make any fixes you might have from botched scans. The images are saved in the folder you chose when you configured your scanning options. You can opt to arrange them just alphabetically, too.

The scanners come with software that can help make the scanning and organizing process more efficient, but could also be a bit confusing for some users because of all the choices.

To test the new OptiCard, which costs $150, I processed 20 random business cards with white backgrounds. I found that scanning was swift; 13 white-background cards came out perfectly or with such minor glitches that they didn’t require any editing. An additional four needed some editing but fixing them didn’t take more than a few minutes. Three cards needed major retyping, replacing missing numbers and redoing a name that got scrambled into a phone number.

I also tried scanning two dark-background cards but to no avail. One didn’t come out at all and the other had black splotches.

I found the $200 IRISCard Pro 4 slightly more accurate in scanning textual information from the same 20 cards. Only two needed minor editing — replacing a hyphen with a comma, for example — and just one card required major retyping, replacing skipped information. The scanner, however, was no better at the dark cards.

I also scanned a couple photos in both devices, but the copies were too blurry to save.

Both scanners are smaller than many TV remote controls. The OptiCard is 1.5 inches high, 6.9 inches wide and 2.4 inches deep. The IRISCard Pro 4 is 1.3 by 6.2 inches and is two inches deep. I was able to take them to work in one of my jacket pockets. I could imagine bringing the device along for a days-long seminar to keep up with card-collecting. Both are compatible with Windows PCs and Macs.

While the interface between the scanners and the user’s contact data program could offer more features to make organizing easier, these tools are worth a try. At least you can get those cards off your desk before the pile topples.

• Email me at sarmad.ali@wsj.com. Walt Mossberg is on vacation.

There are “universal” remotes that are designed to let you operate multiple electronics devices from a single control. But most universal remotes, if you can figure out how to work them at all, don’t help much with the tedious sequence of button pushes often required to do simple tasks, like watch a movie. In my case, just turning on the TV can require up to six punches on two different remotes, depending on what activity I happened to be doing on my home-theater system the last time I shut it off.

Logitech International, the Swiss computer-accessory maker, has come up with an answer to the problems of remote-control clutter and excessive button-pushing with its family of Harmony universal remote controls that are relatively affordable and easy to use.

The Harmony 1000

I tested two of the latest models of Logitech remotes, the Harmony 890 and 1000, and found that they greatly simplified using my home-theater system, despite a few flaws.

It’s a challenge just getting many universal remotes working, considering all of the electronics gear that occupy many TV rooms. The setup usually involves punching arcane codes into a universal remote corresponding to your electronics devices after looking the numbers up in a manual — a tedious process with lots of opportunity for failure.

Users configure Harmony remotes through what I found to be a far more user-friendly process: by tethering them to a Mac or Windows PC with a USB cable. A software program that comes with the remotes asks users what types of devices they’d like to set up, such as a home-theater receiver, a television set and a digital video recorder. Users will need the model number for their devices.

Once you’ve entered the model numbers into the Harmony program, the software automatically downloads all of the commands required to configure the remote so it works with your TV-room gadgets from an online Logitech database containing more than 200,000 devices — far more than you’d find listed in the manual for a conventionally programmed universal remote control. The Harmony software easily located all of my devices in its database.

An important feature of the Harmony remotes is something called activities, which lets users reduce to one the multiple button pushes typically required to do basic functions with their entertainment systems, such as watching a DVD. Logitech didn’t invent this concept, but it has made the setup process easy enough so users don’t have to hire a professional installer to do it for them, as is the case with many other high-end universal remote controls.

Based on the types of devices I told it I had, the Harmony software on the PC recommended a handful of activities for my remote controls, including “Watch TV,” “Watch a DVD,” and “Listen to CDs.”

To watch a DVD on my entertainment system, I normally need to turn on my TV and set it to the correct video input source, turn on my home theater receiver (which I use to play audio when watching movies) and turn on my Xbox 360 game console (through which I play DVDs) — a process that requires up to seven button pushes on multiple remote controls.

The Harmony remotes eventually allowed me to push one button to turn on all of these devices, but there were hiccups. When I hit the “Watch DVD” activity button, the Harmony remotes initially turned on all of my devices except the Xbox 360. After a few minutes exploring the Harmony software on the PC, I was able to change a setting to correct the problem and update the remote.

In all, it took me about 30 minutes to configure the first Logitech remote I used, the Harmony 1000, and half that time for the Harmony 890, after I had become familiar with the process.

The two models of remotes offered similar functions but in radically different industrial designs. The Harmony 1000 is a tablet-shape control about the size of a small picture frame, with a large touch-sensitive color screen that displays large buttons for accessing activities and other functions on your devices. The Harmony 890 is a more conventional wand-shape remote with a smaller screen.

I preferred the design of the Harmony 890, finding it easier and more natural to use with one hand, not to mention a better value. I have found the Harmony 1000 selling for as low as $272 and the Harmony 890 for $222 on Amazon.com. The 890 comes with a kit that lets you extend the range of the remote by using radio frequency, instead of infrared, signals.

Both Harmony remotes, though, made it much easier for me to use my entertainment system and cleaned up some of the clutter in my living room.

Walt Mossberg is on vacation.

Write to Nick Wingfield at nick.wingfield@wsj.com

You could, of course, automatically back up your files to an external hard disk, attached to your PC or to your home network. But that can get expensive, and it doesn’t store your backup remotely, so any disaster at your home or office could also wipe out your backup drive.

There’s another method: backing up over the Internet to a remote server somewhere. This is automated and solves the location issue, but in too many cases it has been costly and complicated, usually with quotas on how much you can back up.

Now, things are changing. I have been testing two online backup services that offer unlimited capacity — no quotas or limits at all — for around $50 a year.

One, called Carbonite, has been unlimited from the start, and Mozy, which previously had limits, is offering unlimited capacity as of today.

Mozy and Carbonite can be set to back up only a few key folders or types of files — say, all your work documents or music files — or, you can set them to back up nearly everything on your computer. If you have a loss, whether a single file, a folder, or everything, they allow you to recover it. Also, you can back up multiple computers with Mozy and Carbonite, but you have to pay extra for each additional machine.

The two services are easy to set up and easy to use. Each worked fine in my tests, both for backing up my key files and also for restoring them.

Carbonite can be downloaded at www.carbonite.com or purchased in stores. There is a 15-day free trial, after which it costs $50 a year, though some stores also sell a $15 version that lasts for three months. The trial version doesn’t back up music or videos by default.

Mozy can be downloaded from www.mozy.com and costs $4.95 a month, or $54.45 if you pay for a year in advance. Mozy also has a totally free version, which is limited to two gigabytes of data. (That is likely to be more than enough, by the way, to cover all of a typical consumer’s word processing, tax and budget files, and plenty of photos.)

Both services currently run only on Windows XP, but both expect to work on the new Windows Vista operating system. And both companies plan to release Macintosh versions next year.

Each installs a fairly small program on your PC that constantly works in the background to back up your data. When a file changes, or a new file is added, it is queued for backup. Carbonite backs up new or changed files 10 minutes after you save and close them, but only backs up each file once a day. Mozy checks the hard disk every two hours and backs up everything that is new or changed. With Mozy, but not with Carbonite, you can also opt for a scheduled backup at a time and interval of your choosing.

The biggest drawbacks of these two products are that backups can be very slow, especially the first backup, and you must have Internet access to do backups and to restore your files. In my tests, on a very fast Internet connection, it still took many hours to do a fairly small initial backup with each product, consisting of about five gigabytes in one case and under two gigabytes in another. A larger backup could take days, though subsequent backups would be much, much quicker.

Both companies encrypt the backed-up files and say they don’t view them. Both try to avoid overburdening or slowing down your computer and Internet connection by going idle or slowing down when you are using your computer for other tasks.

To restore files with Carbonite, you open a sort of virtual representation of your backed-up files and click on what you want restored. If your computer is stolen or not functioning, you can also go to a Web site to initiate a full restore to a new computer.

With Mozy, you can also restore files and folders via a virtual view of your backup that resides on your PC. But Mozy has a much richer Web interface for viewing your backup and for restoring files. From a Web site on any PC, you can log into Mozy and pick any file or folder to retrieve. I even logged in from a Mac, opened a Mozy backup of my Windows PC, and recovered a photo that was then downloaded to the Mac.

Of the two products, I prefer Mozy. Carbonite is a little quicker and simpler to set up, but it’s more limited. If you want to go beyond the default backup choice — your most common documents and settings — you have to troll through your hard disk to select additional folders and files for backup. Mozy also has a default setting, but makes it much easier to alter or customize it.

Mozy offers more-versatile restoring and scheduled backups, and unlike Carbonite, will back up an external hard disk. Mozy will also send you a DVD of all your files, for a fee. Carbonite won’t. Mozy also keeps multiple versions of any file for 30 days. Carbonite doesn’t.

Still, you won’t go wrong with either of these two services, and you’ll sleep better at night.

Email me at mossberg@wsj.com.