Sometimes it’s really useful to be able to have direct access to a remote computer.  Particularly if you are helping someone who isn’t technical (and its a nightmare trying to help them over the phone).  However accessing a remote computer can be a fiddly exercise if you are trying to negotiate corporate or home firewalls, family members lack of computer skills or a lack of operating system compatibility.

Thankfully there is a company out there that has created a service to address this service. LogMeIn.com provides a free service that allows you to access remote computers regarless of the operating system they use – it supports Windows and Mac.

LogMeIn Homepage

It’s easy to use and runs over Port 80 (HTTP) so you don’t need any special tricks to get it working with firewalls.  Signup for an account, install a plugin on the remote computer and you are good to go.