How can I access my files and printers from my home office over the Internet while on the road? Of course, freeware solutions are always preferable.

Remote Desktop, Remote Administrator (not free), Hamachi, and a dozen more... pick whatever suits you.

HTH

VPN in. You DON'T want to expose file/printer sharing directly to the internet.

I agree, which is why I am posting here before trying any of the above mentioned applications. Can you be more specific? Basically, I need to be able to print to my home office printer from the road, and access a drive.

I agree, which is why I am posting here before trying any of the above mentioned applications. Can you be more specific? Basically, I need to be able to print to my home office printer from the road, and access a drive.

With basically any VPN, you'll be able to do anything the way you do usually, just like if you were plugged in your home network locally. There's lots of good VPNs out there. Not that I care much for it, but lots of people seemingly like Hamachi for its simplicity.

Just connect, and everything will work as usual, even if you're working remotely/over the internet.

@crahak - Hamachi does just that. I use it all the time to connect to my files at home. I'm sitting here in class and I can print out something on my computer at home over my "LAN", and it all works seemlessly.

Oh - and if you're worried about security - Hamachi is 256-bit encrypted. That's better than you get for your bank's website.

@crahak - Hamachi does just that.

I know, that's why I mentioned the name too (for user friendlyness mainly). My issues aren't with encryption, but I'm not going over this again. Seemingly lots of people prefer something user friendly over something more... "full featured" I guess, and there's nothing wrong with that. Preferences/needs/whatever change from one person to another.

It is called a fax machine. You now the thing you dail into to print and send messages.

So by that logic the person would be able to send a picture and print it out to there computer besides using the computer normally?

About that remote access a self proclaimed hacker was telling me about this and how they could just move anyhing on a desktop or gain access by finding the mac number since a virus can be smaller then a KB besides talking about dead cloned fish.