To be fair regarding the VPN tech -- it is not PPTP which is at fault, it is Microsoft's implementation. But, since Windows platforms are the overwhelming majority of PPTP users, such VPNs are prejudged to be insecure.
If uptime is critical, just copy and paste into /usr/local/bin/uptime:
Code:
#!/bin/sh
var=$(date | awk '{print $4}' | awk -F : '{print $1 ":" $2}')
echo $var up like forever, dude!