connect to home network via net

hi i currently have a linksys router/switch with one pc wired into the router and a second pc connected via a wireless pci card. I have also just purchased a laptop witrh wireless networking built in (what i am using now) but what i would like to be able to setup is to able to connect to my home network to acess the files that are on the two pc's no matter where i am. are there any settings that i can use to do this or is there any software that you would recomend ? thanks

There are several ways you could do this. Firstly, you could set up a web server with some PHP/ASP code. Accessing these pages from an Internet browser anywhere would display the folder contents and you could then browse your files. You could also set up a secure FTP server, and make sure all the files that you want to use are located in the FTP server's folder. You could also share all the files on the web server and use the built-in Directory Browsing (in IIS) to access your files.

Alternatively, you could a remote control program, such as Remote Desktop Connection (if you are using XP Pro). You could then use the remote desktop client to connect to your computers from anywhere with Internet access, and you would be able to access your computer as if you were sitting in front of it.

There are other programs to remotely connect to your computer. For example, GoToMyPC is a web based interface that allows you to connect easily to your computer. A Google web search will reveal more products.

Obviously, whichever method you choose, you'll need to make sure that it is secure. With the web based browser, you'd need to open up port 80 on your firewall and forward it to one of your computers. On this computer, you would need to install a web server (IIS is included in 2000 and XP Pro, PWS is in 98, or you could get Apache). After making sure that it is secure you could get some code (PHP would work) which would be able to browse your network files. This would all need to be kept password protected, and you would need to lock down your web server heavily. Web servers are often open to attack and this could be a slight problem.

If you want to use Remote Desktop connection, you would need to open up port 3389 on your router, and forward it to your computer which you want to control. Then using a remote desktop client you would connect to your external IP address and you should be able to logon OK as if you were sitting in front of the computer.

GoToMyPC would be a simple choice, as everything is set up for you, although you do have to pay a subscription fee.

Whichever method you choose, you will have to leave the computer running all of the time that you want to connect from externally and a static IP address is preferable, although a dynamic one can be made to work with a little more effort.

HTH,

Edwin