Funnily enough, I have been thinking about this recently - that I'd like to be able to connect to my home systems with my mobile and check the status of downloads, and so forth. I toyed with various ideas, including running a dial-up server on my Windows 2003 box, even writing some sort of Java app that would run on my posh mobile phone.

Andreas Karlsson has something better - a working release of an ssh client for an Ericsson P800. This sort of thing would be absolutely ideal, being that ssh has a range of functionality but is also very secure. There is also work underway for a VNC client as well.

Ultimately, I expect that the mobile phone will evolve to become a kind of "remote control" for the home PC system. I expect the mobile to change into an all-in-one device that handles calls, acts as a PDA and also as an ssh client. Who knows... perhaps the next version of windows will have remote desktop server for mobiles built in....??

More here.

Screenshot here.

You see the phone doing things that a PDA does, I see it the other way around, I see the PDA's turning into phones. I know this is happening already, but it would be better to do it that way with the screen size of the PDA, not the phone. But I guess it is quite cumbersome to try and talk on a big PDA.

The idea of phones turning into all these things just doesnt appeal to me.. doesnt seem convienent. That tiny LCD screen, maybe ok for instant messaging but not all the other blabber they're trying to make cell phones do these days. I recon its all a bit silly

I think your idea Poetner, its somewhat true. It just seems more likely. Maybe down size the PDA a bit so its nicer to hold up to your ear and talk on, but still have the nice LCD,etc. Well it is true.. On TechTV i've seen many PDA's that are also cell phones.

What would be ideal would be if you could call your home PC from your mobile, and give it voice commands to do things....!

RemotelyAnywhere (.com) already provides a full interface for the administration of your PC from any browser (on a pc, mac, solaris, pda, wap / gprs phone, etc)