Screen sharing with remote Mac

Question

hi,
my mom got herself a used MacBook but she is new to computing. she keeps on calling me about troubleshooting issues. helping her over the phone is cumbersome.
how would i go about using screen sharing to take control of her Mac from home ? what needs to be installed on my Mac and hers ? what information is required on my Mac to access hers over the WWW ? is there a step-by-step instruction/manual out there ? do i need VNC or ARD ?
sorry if this sounds dumb - new to this part of networking ...

Answer 1

Please do not hijack someone else's thread, especially one that has been answered. You can not give points to helpful contributes unless you start your own thread.
Am I wrong in searching help and seeing you have to have Back to My Mac subscribed to to make this happen OUTSIDE of iChat,
No, it is possible to make connections without iChat and without a MobileMe subscription. It is just harder.
as in by pulling an alias out of CoreServices folder in the primary System folder and putting it in the dock?
You do not need to create a Screen Sharing alias, you can use Finder -> Go -> Connect to Server -> vnc://address.of.vnc.server. You can create Safari bookmarks with vnc://adddress.of.vnc.server and use them. You can drag those Safari URLs to a folder, and create double-clickable files that will also launch the Screen Sharing utility.
Otherwise, outside of using iChat it seems 10.5.8 and up have lots of built in ability to use the built in version of VNC such as ScreenSharing .app and whatnot, but seems to me most all of the remote or sharing key items require a .Mac account or be used BEHIND a LAN, not through a WAN...
Am I wrong in this?
Well, you can use TeamViewer.com, LogMeIn.com, GoToMyPC.com, and maybe a few other services. These would be easy. They all have the same thing in common with iChat and MobileMe. There is a server that both systems talk to, that handles exchanging IP addresses, and since both system make the out-bound connection, this solves the "How do I get though the home router firewall protections" question.
If you want to roll your own, then you get to figure out how to have your home router port forward the Screen Sharing port 5900 from the internet side to your Mac, and the file sharing port 548 (if you want file sharing over the internet).
Now you need to get the IP address assigned to your router, and give that to the person attempting to make a Screen Sharing connection. WhatIsMyIP.com is one such service. Or you can get a free dynamic DNS name from a serivce such as No-IP.com or DynDNS.org, and then download one of their dynamic DNS name updating utilities, which you install on your Mac and run in the background so your dynamic DNS names stays updated whenever your ISP changes your router's IP address.
Now from the Mac making the connection, you use Finder -> Go -> Connect to Server -> vnc://address.of.your.router, or for file sharing afp://address.of.your.router.
NOTE: Doing this exposes known ports to malicious "Bots" that will attempt to break into your Mac, so make sure you use a very secure password. Yet another feature for the above services, as you do not open in-bound ports.
Also NOTE: These roll your own connections may not be encrypted. I think there is an option in Screen Sharing that will make the Mac to Mac Screen Sharing connections encrypted, but that does not apply if you are talking to a Windows or Unix/Linux VNC server. I do not think the file sharing connections are encrypted. The above services do provide end-to-end encryption for screen sharing and file transfers.
If you want end-to-end encryption in a roll your own environment, you can use ssh tunnels, however, that is another layer of complexity. If you enjoy that sort of thing (and some of use do), that is another avenue you can pursue.
If you have any further questions about screen or file sharing please start a new thread where you can assign points for Helpful answers and Solutions. It isn't much, but the people that give you good answers deserve something for their efforts.