Connect To Home Mac Desktop From Work

Hi Mathew

Your question is a bit too broad to get an answer. It's a bit like asking "Does anyone know how I can write a document using Word?" How can anyone answer such a question? "Yes, buy it and use it" ?

To try and be helpful I will say that I connect to and control my MacMini at home from my iMac at work using ARD. It is not the cheapest way to do it. If all you want to do is see the screen and contol it, via mouse and keyboard, there are other VNC programs available for free. ARD has a lot more management tools as it is aimed at people running installations like school computer labs where one computer controls dozens of others. I have had a lot of trouble getting these more advanced features to work outside the LAN, which is why I'm searching the list today. I have had very poor experience with transfering files over the Internet with ARD. Sometimes it has worked, mostly not.

Which brings me to the second point. You mention "ARD or some type of FTP software". ARD and FTP are very different tools, although I guess ARD uses the FTP protocol. ARD lets you see and control a remote computer. FTP is for sending files. If you just want to send files I wholeheartedly recommend Transmit

Your home needs to have a fixed IP addres and you need to know it. In theory all you have to do is enter the IP address into ARD to locate the home computer. Tghen you need to knwo a login and password for the home computer.

There are quite a few other points to consider, but you give very few clues. Is Apple Remote Access enabled on the home computer? (System Preferences / Sharing). Is the login you will use authorised for remote access (same place) ? Is you home computer actually connected to the internet? Sorry if that sounds silly, but I once saw a tech support service baffled for three days by a user who complained angrily that Netscape didn't work. The penny dropped when he said "what's a modem?". His computer was connected to the power socket and nothing else. If you are going to use ARD your home computer needs to be online all the time.

Denis

How do you get a fixed IP address ???

That all depends on the service you buy from your ISP. If you have a dailup connection your IP address will vary, depending on which of the ISP's modems answer your call. If you have broadband you can generally get afixed IP address. I work for an ISP and all our broadband customers now have fixed IP addresses. Your ISP may do things differently. Sometime your IP address will change each time you get disconnected (i.e, randomly every few hours or days)There are companies (try http://www.dyndns.com/) that will help you get, or at least appear to have, a fixed IP address. What they actually do is reserve an IP number for you and then redirect any connections sent to that IP address to whatever your ISP is giving you at the time, keeeping track of the changes. You run a program on your mac that calls dyndns every time you connect and basically says "I am not available on 123.123.123.123 (not a real number). Please forward any calls for me there."

Denis...

dyndns.com does not reserve an IP address for you. You sign up for a hostname, not IP address. Your hostname then points to whatever IP address the dyndns daemon installed on one's computer is reporting to the dyndns service.

Sorry, my mistake. I only used dyndns briefly, and not very successfully, before I was able to get a fixed ip address. Of course it makes more sense for dnydns to give you a domain name, which you can tell your friends/customers and then forward that to your actual ip address at the time

I'm trying to set up remote access for my daughter between her workplace (her own business) and home - both Macs - and have been trawling the discussions for help. This thread has provided some useful information, but I'm wondering why this isn't clearly set out somewhere on Apple's site - oh for the days of user's manuals (although I have to admit I didn't always read them).

This really seems to be much more difficult than it needs to be.

Thanks to everyone who contributed above. I may be back : )

G4 Mac OS X (10.3.9)