R/C computer anyone?

I thought I would do a write up on different options you have to get to your computer from the internet. All of these solutions are able to be used anywhere at any time as long as you have a internet connection. At most, you will need a thumb drive with a program or 2 installed.

Option 1: LogMeIn

LogMeIn.com is probably the easiest option. I have talked about it before, so here I will go into a little more detail. It is a webservice that lets you start an account and set up any computer to remotely connect to. When you start, you get a trial of the pro version and then it downgrades you to the free version. The pro version is like $20 a year, but the free version works fine, you can use free software to complement it so that it has the same features as the pro version. It works from a browser, so no software needed. It works by taking screenshots of the computer and then seeing where you click. I wish that it were a live connection, but the screenshot technique works on smaller bandwidth.

More Info: http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/logmein-access-your-pc-from-anywhere/

Option 2: VNC

VNC is great. It lets you see a live view of the remote machine. There are several derivitives. RealVNC costs money, TightVNC is the one I use. You have to start the server on the remote machine and the viewer on the local one. To connect you need a static IP address. The viewer asks you for either a domain or an IP. Since most of the networks you will be on will be DHCP, which means it will automatically give you an IP address that is different every time you connect based on what IP addresses it has left to assign (and how many other computers are connected). To make sure that you can type in the same number every time, you need to use a service called DynDNS. It will install small program that basically checks your internal IP every once in a while and tells DynDNS.org what it is. When you sign up, you choose a domain name like whatever.isageek.com (they have several to choose from) and that domain will be bound to your current IP. It is this domain that you will use to connect with. This will get you working with VNC, but VNC traffic is not secure. To secure it, we will tunnel the connection through SSH. You can tunnel any kind of connection through SSH, and it is a great way to make sure no one is listening on your connection. This will require installing Cygwin. This entire process is documented here:

http://erikjheels.com/?p=470

I am working on getting this to function, i posted here:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-software-2/cygwin-ssh-setup-permissions-error-702852/#post3440484

I will follow up this post with details when I figure it all out.


Option 4: Remote Desktop

Vista buisness and Ultimate come with remote desktop built in to them. It is a very common way to administrate from afar. You can set it up so that you can connect from another Vista computer or an XP one. There are several tutorials online for how to set this up.


Option 3: Everything else

There are lots of other little standalone EXE's that you can download that you execute on both the remote and local machines. The problem is that for these, you have to have a person on the other end as they are designed for remotely helping people with problems. Examples include CrossLoop and Ammyy.


For the most features and control, VNC over SSH is the way to go. If you have 5 minutes to set it up, then LogMeIn works great to.