How to access Your Computer Remotely

Afraid you’ll be bored on up coming holidays? Nervous about seven mind-numbing days on Nantucket? Thanks to virtual network computing, you can access your home machine from anywhere.

Step 1. PC users: If you are running WinXP Home, you can use Microsoft’s Remote Desktop software or install a free VNC server like TightVNC. WinXP Pro and Windows Vista or later have Remote Desktop Connection built into it. Simply right-click on “My Computer”, select “Properties” and click on the “Remote” tab. Check the box to enable remote access.
Mac OS X users: Macs have a remote screen sharing program built in. If you want to share your Windows desktop from your Mac, download Microsoft’s Remote Desktop Connection software for Mac OS X.

Step 2. Sign up for a domain name service like DynDNS, which lets you assign an easy-to-remember name (adrienne.is-a-geek .net, for example) to your home connection’s ever-changing IP address. For in-depth instructions, see our article Set Up Dynamic DNS.

Step 3. Configure port forwarding on your home router to allow remote access. Check your router’s user manual for directions, or visit your router’s page on portforward.com for specific instructions. Don’t have a router? Try a web-based app like LogMeIn. Note: the default port for Remote Desktop on Windows XP is 3389.

Step 4. If you don’t want to use the operating system’s remote desktop software (mentioned in Step 1), install a VNC viewer on the remote machine instead. For Macs, try JollysFastVNC. For PCs, TightVNC’s viewer component is good. Now simply enter your home computer’s domain name and you’re in!

Step 5. Remember: VNC isn’t secure. If you’re worried about eavesdroppers, ask someone even geekier than us to help you set up an encrypted SSH tunnel. Doug Bowman has an informative article about setting up SSHTM on a Mac. We recommend running your remote desktop through a non-standard port and pick solid passwords. Beware: there are bots that try common usernames and passwords on public IP addresses.

Using a Linux operating system

If you have a shell account on an internet accessible server somewhere (your web server perhaps), you can make a script to keep your home computer logged in via SSH. Log into the server, run ‘w’ to see logged in users, note your home computers IP address. Now SSH to your home computer and you can share its command line. Alternatively, installing a VNC using the steps above allows you to see your Linux desktop, but could unnecessarily chew bandwidth.

In the Future

Sure Microsoft and Apple are providing software that make it easy to share your desktop over the internet, but the future might make your computer even more portable. Netbooks, tablets, mobile phones, even e-books mean bringing a computer with you.

It may not seem like much at first, but you would be surprised what you can do with a keyboard and a browser. Besides, advances in computing power on small devices are rapidly approaching where we were only a few years ago. And this technology is really just around the corner! Perhaps the future of accessing your computer on-the-go depends less on where your computer is and more on where you want to plug it in. Why hasn’t Intel gotten into the computer building business the chips are great, but I say they should build thier own and drop the middlemen.

This is almost irrelevant with smartphones. You can do just about anything on an iPhone. The only thing computer now do that smartphones don’t are larger picture screens.

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