CanInBKK Posted October 14, 2010 Share Posted October 14, 2010 Hi all, my home computing set-up is 3 PCs connected to a WiFi router that uses ADSL from True. I want to be able to connect to one of my home PCs from any place I travel to (hotel, internet cafe, etc.). How can I go about doing this? I have put the home computer I want to connect to in the Router's DMZ and enabled Remote Desktop. Is this sufficient? Say I'm at a hotel can I just open up Remote Desktop and type in the IP address that True has assigned to my ADSL modem? I'm at home right now so I can't test it out but I don't want to arrive at my destination to have a forehead slapper and say "dam_n, it doesn't work!". Any advice is appreciated. (BTW, I have turned off all other user accounts and created a difficult password to crack, as well as run all updates on the PC I intend to put in the DMZ). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
triplegee Posted October 14, 2010 Share Posted October 14, 2010 Check out TeamViewer - it does everything you want and more and is easy to install. I use it to access my home and office PC's from each other as well as through an iPhone app. Free for private use too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
britmaveric Posted October 14, 2010 Share Posted October 14, 2010 PC anywhere works well too....however you should be able to RDP into your machine. Just give yourself permission under the RDP tab. Also make sure 3389 is open and bidirectional on your firewall/router. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
floridaguy Posted October 14, 2010 Share Posted October 14, 2010 I like Logmein the best. Secure connection, free, as many PC's that you want, you can access it from any computer, it has Mac and iPhone application. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thaimite Posted October 14, 2010 Share Posted October 14, 2010 You don't say what OS you are using but remote desktop will work with XP professional on the home machine, and the correct versions of Win 7 or even Vista, BUT there are many pitfalls. such as your modem rebooting and being assigned another IP address by True (use DDNS on your router to get round this), and the fact you will need to open a port to your machine. . Unless you are experienced in such matters I would recomend going for one of the 3rd party products that offer remote access to your PC. which also avoid these issues. There are many (if you are using an MS OS, teamviewer mentioend above is oe and logmein is another. I use NTRCoonnect which is one of the few that I found that works with Linux. The nice thing about the 3rd party software is that you CAN test it from your home (at least with NTR connect I was able to) and ensure everything is fine before you leave. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
siamect Posted October 14, 2010 Share Posted October 14, 2010 Hi all, my home computing set-up is 3 PCs connected to a WiFi router that uses ADSL from True. I want to be able to connect to one of my home PCs from any place I travel to (hotel, internet cafe, etc.). How can I go about doing this?I have put the home computer I want to connect to in the Router's DMZ and enabled Remote Desktop. Is this sufficient? Say I'm at a hotel can I just open up Remote Desktop and type in the IP address that True has assigned to my ADSL modem? I'm at home right now so I can't test it out but I don't want to arrive at my destination to have a forehead slapper and say "dam_n, it doesn't work!". Any advice is appreciated. (BTW, I have turned off all other user accounts and created a difficult password to crack, as well as run all updates on the PC I intend to put in the DMZ). Don't use the DMZ unless you are completely careless... it is better to use port forwarding only on the ports you need... Team-viewer (although my personal opinion is that it is crap) is using a central server and that eliminates the need for port forwarding, dynamic DNS etc, making it easy for the customer to the expense of personal integrity, security and so on....but ok, if you don't care, you'll be happy... Do you really need the desktop or are you looking for file transfer? If file transfer are what you need try some ssh based stuff... At least you will have a little grain of security and integrity. Martin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CanInBKK Posted October 14, 2010 Author Share Posted October 14, 2010 Wow! Thanks for the quick replies. I think I should be more specific, I run XP at home and use Microsoft Outlook as my home e-mail client. As my Exchange server for work has a very small quota, I locally archive my mail to my home PC hard drive. I work mostly from home so this is why I have my e-mail archived here but I have to be physically present in the office once a week. As such I would need to actually see my home desktop from elsewhere, so I could launch Outlook (on the home PC) and dig through my old e-mails looking for what I needed. Will Teamviewer allow me to do this? (The name would seem to imply so). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
siamect Posted October 14, 2010 Share Posted October 14, 2010 (edited) Wow! Thanks for the quick replies. I think I should be more specific, I run XP at home and use Microsoft Outlook as my home e-mail client. As my Exchange server for work has a very small quota, I locally archive my mail to my home PC hard drive. I work mostly from home so this is why I have my e-mail archived here but I have to be physically present in the office once a week. As such I would need to actually see my home desktop from elsewhere, so I could launch Outlook (on the home PC) and dig through my old e-mails looking for what I needed. Will Teamviewer allow me to do this? (The name would seem to imply so). I hope you have a good backup... If you need you old mail just copy the PST file over to your laptop before you leave home...or put the PST file on an external drive.... Then use outlook on your laptop to retrieve new emails... Outlook suck big time because the PST files contain everything so when you get one new email you have to backup the whole pst file.... Edited October 14, 2010 by siamect Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bangkockney Posted October 14, 2010 Share Posted October 14, 2010 I second TeamViewer, it's a fantastic tool. Has web-front access too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bangkockney Posted October 14, 2010 Share Posted October 14, 2010 ... Team-viewer (although my personal opinion is that it is crap) ... Martin Would love to know more about why you think this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CanInBKK Posted October 14, 2010 Author Share Posted October 14, 2010 Wow! Thanks for the quick replies. I think I should be more specific, I run XP at home and use Microsoft Outlook as my home e-mail client. As my Exchange server for work has a very small quota, I locally archive my mail to my home PC hard drive. I work mostly from home so this is why I have my e-mail archived here but I have to be physically present in the office once a week. As such I would need to actually see my home desktop from elsewhere, so I could launch Outlook (on the home PC) and dig through my old e-mails looking for what I needed. Will Teamviewer allow me to do this? (The name would seem to imply so). I hope you have a good backup... If you need you old mail just copy the PST file over to your laptop before you leave home...or put the PST file on an external drive.... Then use outlook on your laptop to retrieve new emails... Outlook suck big time because the PST files contain everything so when you get one new email you have to backup the whole pst file.... I used to that, I put it on a thumb drive, I would come home (after working at an internet cafe) and lo-and-behold I would have viruses. I lived with it for a while until one day I lost the thumb drive, rife with all my info on it! After that information exposure, I said to heck with thumb drives. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bangkockney Posted October 14, 2010 Share Posted October 14, 2010 I also use LogMeIn Hamachi from time to time too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
siamect Posted October 14, 2010 Share Posted October 14, 2010 ... Team-viewer (although my personal opinion is that it is crap) ... Martin Would love to know more about why you think this. No you don't... It will just lead to endless, silly, time consuming uninteresting argumentation. Martin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
siamect Posted October 14, 2010 Share Posted October 14, 2010 [ I used to that, I put it on a thumb drive, I would come home (after working at an internet cafe) and lo-and-behold I would have viruses. I lived with it for a while until one day I lost the thumb drive, rife with all my info on it! After that information exposure, I said to heck with thumb drives. Good point! Encrypt it.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bangkockney Posted October 14, 2010 Share Posted October 14, 2010 ... Team-viewer (although my personal opinion is that it is crap) ... Martin Would love to know more about why you think this. No you don't... It will just lead to endless, silly, time consuming uninteresting argumentation. Martin Sorry, didn't mean for my post to come across as wanting to take it in that direction! I am actually genuinely interested in your opinion! PM me if you want (or are bothered), either way lol. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joncl Posted October 14, 2010 Share Posted October 14, 2010 I use teamviewer on the Mac, Windows (Xp, Vista, Win7) and Linux. A great free app for remote access and my 84yr old mum loves it to, as I can fix her notebook from here in BKK. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CanInBKK Posted October 14, 2010 Author Share Posted October 14, 2010 I'm downloading Teamviewer as I type this but I do have another question now. It seems that both PCs need to be running a Teamviewer client. In the event I want to access my home PC through a hotel PC or internet cafe, does Teamviewer have a web portal? (i.e. can I use regular Internet Explorer and browse my home desktop?) It's kind of unlikely that a hotel would allow me to install the client on their PC. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CharlieH Posted October 14, 2010 Share Posted October 14, 2010 What happens to your home pc etc when the power goes out ? as happens all too often in Thailand ........this is why I stick with the 4gb thumb drive for pst file and other stuff (encrypted), even has its own virus checker. I spent ages finding appropriate software etc, setting it all up, went down to bangkok and the power went out only for a few seconds back at home and everything was shutdown.......arrgghhhhh.....frustrating. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bangkockney Posted October 14, 2010 Share Posted October 14, 2010 I'm downloading Teamviewer as I type this but I do have another question now. It seems that both PCs need to be running a Teamviewer client. In the event I want to access my home PC through a hotel PC or internet cafe, does Teamviewer have a web portal? (i.e. can I use regular Internet Explorer and browse my home desktop?) It's kind of unlikely that a hotel would allow me to install the client on their PC. Yes it also has a web front end. When you install the software on the target machine, you can set it to always start with windows and always be listening for connections. You should also choose a password that's very strong. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
britmaveric Posted October 14, 2010 Share Posted October 14, 2010 ^UPS - bit of a requirement these days. Mine is good for an hr if power fails. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thaimite Posted October 14, 2010 Share Posted October 14, 2010 ^UPS - bit of a requirement these days. Mine is good for an hr if power fails. Many system BIOSes can be set to either restart after power failure or my preferred resume state before power failure. i.e. If it was already on, reboot else stay off. Thus no matter how long the power is out you PC should restart eventually. Thanks for the tip that TeamViewer also supports Linux. When I looked about 18 months ago I could not find any that would let me remote access my Linux server. other than NTRConnect (paid) I am now downloading TeamViewer to try here and if it works I may be updating my server next time I am in Thailand ( I do not want to risk doing it remotely) Before sombody suggests that I use the built in Linux tools my situation is a little more difficult than most as my home server in Ubon is on a CAT CDMA connection so I do not have a real IP address but a 10.x.x.x address supplied by CAT which will not let me open ports etc.A BIG downisde to CDMA but it is still better than the only alternative Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joncl Posted October 14, 2010 Share Posted October 14, 2010 run a dyndns or no-ip client on your linux box and you will always find it, but with teamviewer this is NOT required, as it has it own system / directory service for doing this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thaimite Posted October 14, 2010 Share Posted October 14, 2010 run a dyndns or no-ip client on your linux box and you will always find it, but with teamviewer this is NOT required, as it has it own system / directory service for doing this. I think DynaDNS will only report the true IP address of my CAT connection, and not the NATtedx address of my USB dongle I did try many experiments before going to NTRConnect and I am confident that eamViewer will work the same way. Not having a proper IP address is also a disadvantage for torrents for the same reason (port forwarding) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cloggie Posted October 14, 2010 Share Posted October 14, 2010 If you live in Pattaya I can do the setup for you, if you want Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thaimite Posted October 15, 2010 Share Posted October 15, 2010 Not in Pattaya OR Thailand at the moment Thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
innerspace Posted October 15, 2010 Share Posted October 15, 2010 Logmein is my personal preference for controlling windows machines since it has such a simple, secure and powerful interface. The free version is sufficient in most cases but you get a months free trial on the pro version anyway which just gets downgraded if you don't upgrade. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wprime Posted October 15, 2010 Share Posted October 15, 2010 DMZing the local IP of your computer should work, but it will be completely exposed to the internet, not recommend for Windows. Port forwarding 3389 is sufficient. Make sure you open 3389 in any local firewalls too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crushdepth Posted October 15, 2010 Share Posted October 15, 2010 If you are using Windows then you have remote desktop built in, it works well and is native so you might as use it (in your start/accessories/ folder somewhere). You need to encrypt the connection though. Easiest way is to set up your own Vpn using hamachi, which is free and dead simple to set up. It will also give you a fixed IP for your computer. Install it on all your machines, create a network and add all your machines to it. Then you can just ype a machines IP into remote desktop and login with your regular password. No need for port forwarding, dynamic DNS and it is strongly encrypted. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
.png.3b3332cc2256ad0edbc2fe9404feeef0.png)
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now