Technical Help

[nickelartistic]

I realize this is going outside the realm of our expertise, but stick with me I'm sure there is someone here who can point me in the right direction. At our office I have 5 PCs networked together and it works great for file sharing, running the different printers, and supporting the pricing program. Now - because I'm sick of being in my office at 12:07 at night - I would like to sign onto my network from home. Has anyone had success with this? Obviously there really isn't room here for a step by step tutorial, but if someone could point me in any direction I would be grateful. All of the online searches I did were either outdated (pre-Vista) or were geared more toward one-to-one networking (ie. PCAnywhere,etc.) and not to networks as a whole. Sorry the post is technical in nature - I promise next time I'll start a heated debate on the best type of vinyl. Thanks!

 

[ChiknNutz]

Not sure if this is exactly what you are after, but I have been using LogMeIn (free) for a couple years now. Check it out and see if it will do what you are after.

 

[econolinesigns]

Have used Go to my PC before and was able to remotely control our server from home.

 

[Mspec]

For remote access, you will either need to have your workstation or a network server with a public IP address. If you connect through a router that gives you an IP address that starts with 192.168.xxx.xxx or 10.xxx.xxx.xxx you will not be able to gain remote access of your workstation from home unless you make use of a third part application such as gotomypc. if you have a network server that you log inot at the office, you can setup a VPN to your home workstation that would give you access to any of your network resources.

 

[BigfishDM]

GO TO MY PC! Works great!

 

[HaroldDesign]

I used to have that set up. I logged in through a secure connection via router, and used a free VNC software to handle it. It really isn't that hard once you're using the right stuff.

 

[Gene@mpls]

Not sure if this is exactly what you are after, but I have been using LogMeIn (free) for a couple years now. Check it out and see if it will do what you are after.

Same here- I printed several things from San Diego last Xmas vacation- had
my employee load the printer and I set up the file and ripped and printed it.
Couldn't figure out how to run the laminator tho- she had to do that.

 

[jiarby]

I use tight-vnc software... you will have to configure port forwarding in your router. Give your pc a static ip address of course! The IP address you connect to from home is you router's then the router will fwd the packets to the pc as configured in your portfwding setup. use different ports for each pc. 5900 for PC1, 5901 for pc2, etc...

also recommend a webcam pointing at the printer so you can see what the heck is going on.

 

[HaroldDesign]

I use tight-vnc software... you will have to configure port forwarding in your router. Give your pc a static ip address of course! The IP address you connect to from home is you router's then the router will fwd the packets to the pc as configured in your portfwding setup. use different ports for each pc. 5900 for PC1, 5901 for pc2, etc...

also recommend a webcam pointing at the printer so you can see what the heck is going on.

+1 tight vnc.
I also set it up at the work place for me to be able to access each computer on the network "virtually", so that when I logged in from home I was able to use each individual computer on the network. Get some hot folders going you'll never go to work again.

 

[nickelartistic]

Awesome advice everyone! I will look into the suggestions then post results. BTW, which of these programs will make my work PCs weed and tape?

 

[nickelartistic]

Just an update - I looked into Logmein.com first just because it was a web service that required very little setup and I think it will work exactly how I need it to. I'm going to keep the other suggestions handy in case I run into any snags, but the Logmein is nice because it doesn't require any port forwarding and I don't need to worry about the fact that my ISP has a dynamic IP. Thanks again.

 

[Jace161]

When I lived in Florida I used Logmein.com all the time to help show my parents how to do things on their computer. It works great! When I'm not in town I have someone load the printer, jump on logmein and print whatever it is I need. I also used it in highschool to play video games on my computer at home ahhh the good ol' days...

There is also remote desktop, but its a bit more involved and I'm not a networking expert so my luck I would open up my poor baby to all kinds of defenseless attacks

 

[choucove]

I've set up for a couple people to access into their work desktop from their home computer using Windows Remote Desktop feature. The reason I've always gone with this route is it's a service integrated with Windows, and allows for pretty good compatibility across platforms meaning it doesn't really matter if they are running XP or Vista at either location. The only problem with this setup, is their internet is assigned a dynamic IP address, so they must check their IP address before heading home to be able to log in remotely.

Now, I haven't had a lot of experience with remote-to-site access myself, but want to learn more as well. What would be the difference between using Windows Remote Desktop and another alternative such as Logmein.com as mentioned above? I know that Linux also has a few varieties of remote desktop clients like RealVNC.

Those with experience in such things as well, I'd like to further ask, if you are able to set up with a firewall at your office that can create remote-to-site VPN network tunnels, what software could you install on the remote client to log into the VPN tunnel?

 

[Wildpony]

I am running Windows Home Server, and I can access the network and all of my computers from off site.