Do you want to remotely access your Mac so you can open applications and edit files on it? This is an increasingly common request. Here’s a quick overview of a few ways to remotely access your Mac.

Back To My Mac

Apple’s iCloud service includes a feature named Back To My Mac. While Back to My Mac doesn’t work in all circumstances, it’s a powerful and free option that lets you remotely access your Mac. MacLife has written a succinct overview of Back To My Mac. Apple has written articles about troubleshooting Back To My Mac and related security considerations. I should note that Back To My Mac requires that you use a Mac to remotely access another Mac. In other words, you can’t use an iPad, iPhone or PC to remotely access your Mac with this feature.

LogMeIn

LogMeIn is one of many products which offers remote access services for both Macs and PCs. LogMeIn offers a free version as well as a paid version called LogMeIn Pro that offers more features. This MacFormat article gives a good overview of LogMeIn Free and LogMeIn Pro. LogMeIn supports remote access of Macs from a PC and vice versa. Additionally, there is a LogMeIn iOS application which works on both iPads and iPhones, though I can’t imagine using it on the iPhone’s tiny screen. The iOS application lets one remotely access either Macs or PCs.

I use LogMeIn to provide remote support to many of my clients. One can download and install the free LogMeIn client software from my web site to give me remote access to their computer.

Apple Remote Desktop and  VPN

Small business clients often prefer to setup their own VPN (Virtual Private Network) and use Apple Remote Desktop or Apple’s free Screen Sharing application to remotely view and manipulate Macs on their office network. Setting up a VPN requires purchasing a router which supports VPN capabilities. Screen Sharing is a free tool built into the Mac operating system starting with OS X 10.5. Apple Remote Desktop costs $80 and provides advanced features to install upgrades and created detailed reports.

Messages’ Screen Sharing

The first three methods listed above require the remote Mac to be awake, but nobody needs physically to be at the remote Mac. If, however, you have a friend or family member at your remote Mac then you could use Messages’ Screen Sharing application. Messages used to be named iChat, which offered this feature for a number of years. Messages was introduced in OS X Lion and works in OS X Mountain Lion. If both of your Macs are using Lion or Mountain Lion then this Apple article gives you an introduction on how to initiate screen sharing.

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Here are instructions on how to share a file or folder inside your Dropbox folder with another person. In previous Tech Tips, I gave an overview of Dropbox and give instructions on how to share files that are too large to send as an email attachment, even with people who don’t have Dropbox accounts, using the Public folder in your Dropbox folder. This week, I cover two more features of Dropbox:

Feature 1. How to share any file, in any folder, inside your Dropbox folder, with another person even if that person doesn’t have their own Dropbox account.

Feature 2. How to setup a shared folder with another person so the two of you can easily exchange files on an on-going basis.

The instructions below assume that you’ve already signed up for your Dropbox account and have installed the Dropbox application on your Mac.

Feature 1 – If you have a one-time need to share a file with a person who doesn’t have their own Dropbox account then you can use Dropbox’s Copy Public Link feature. Here’s how:

• Click once on a file in your Dropbox folder to select it. Then right-click (or control-click) on this file. A menu will appear, select Dropbox and then select Copy Public Link from the sub-menu. (See photo below as a reference.)
• Your web browser will open and a preview of your document will appear. Copy the address which appears in the address field, (https://www.dropbox.com/….)
• Go to your email application, compose a new email message and then paste this address (aka link) into the email message and send the message.
• The recipient can click on the link to be taken to a web page which will let them download the file. Here’s a sample link to one of my files in my Dropbox folder. https://www.dropbox.com/s/skifcwwnajlzn77/Darts-Practice.rtf

I want to emphasize that the recipient is able to download and then edit the file, but this feature doesn’t give them a way to easily send the file back to you. So, this is more of a file distribution capability. It doesn’t offer two-way file exchange. This feature is very similar to sharing a file using the Public folder. In fact, I see only one primary difference. This Copy Public Link feature allows you to leave a file inside of a shared folder while also sharing it with a person who typically can’t access files in that shared folder. Additionally, the

Dropbox has their own article about using this feature.

Feature 2 – If you regularly want to be able to do two-way file exchanges with another person then you’ll want to setup a dedicated shared folder with that person in your Dropbox account. Here’s how:

• Create a folder in your Dropbox folder. For this example, I want to share a folder with a friend named Tom so I created a new folder named Tim-Tom
• Right-click (or control-click) on this folder. A menu will appear, select Dropbox and then Share This Folder… from the sub-menu. (See photo below as a reference.)
• Your web browser will open and you’ll be taken to the Dropbox web site. Login to your Dropbox account if you aren’t already logged in.
• In the field named “Invite collaborators to this folder” type in the email address of another person. I entered Tom’s email address.
• Type in an optional personal invitation message and then click the “Share Folder” button. This will send an email that includes the invite.
• The email recipient can click on a link in the invite email to accept the invitation which grants them access to this folder. If the recipient doesn’t already have their own Dropbox account then they’ll be prompted to create a free account.
• If your invitee accepts your invite then you’re notified via email.

At this point, you’re ready to easily share files with your invitee via this folder. Every time a file is adding, edited or deleted then a notification will pop-up on your screen. This invitee can’t see any other folders that you have in your Dropbox account. Happy file sharing.

Dropbox has their own article about this feature.

Here are answers to some frequently asked questions about this folder sharing feature. This information is taken from Dropbox’s help article.

• You can’t share a folder from within your Public folder. You can share a folder within the Photos folder
• You can’t share a folder inside another shared folder. Attempting to share a folder within a shared folder will automatically send you to the sharing options of the top level shared folder
• Anyone you’ve invited to a folder can then add, delete or change files within that folder
• Anyone you’ve invited to a folder can also invite others to join the folder
• Only the creator of the shared folder can remove people from the folder
• If two people both open and edit a file in a shared folder at the same time, Dropbox will save both of their changes, but in separate files. It does not try to automatically combine or merge changes. Read our help article on conflicting copies to learn more about how this works

If you chose to sign-up for Dropbox please consider using this link to do so, since I’ll earn a referral bonus. Thanks.

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Update June 27, 2012. Today I received an email from ZangZing indicating that they will be permanently closing. “On August 31st, we will be shutting down ZangZing and permanently deleting all photos, contact information, and account information.” It’s back to the drawing board to find a replacement. Recently, Apple announced iOS 6. This is an update to the operating system software that powers iPhones and iPads. iOS 6 will be released in the fall of 2012. Apple indicates that it will include a photostream sharing feature. Maybe this will be a suitable replacement for some people.

If you’re looking for a replacement for MobileMe Gallery you should check out ZangZing.

If you’re a subscriber to MobileMe you likely know that Apple plans to shut it down in June 2012. They are replacing MobileMe with iCloud which has been available since late summer 2011. While iCloud offers many of the same features as MobileMe there are a few conspicuous exceptions. iCloud will not include iDisk, MobileMe Gallery, iWeb Publishing or syncing of System Preferences, Keychains or Widgets. A number of clients and I use iDisk and MobileMe Gallery, so we need to find suitable replacments. Dropbox is a great replacement for iDisk. I’ve been using it in place of iDisk for close to two years and I wrote a Tech Tip about Dropbox nearly a year ago. Dropbox offers some rudimentary photo sharing features which I thought I might use as a replacement for MobileMe Gallery, until I found ZangZing.

ZangZing made it very easy to switch from MobileMe Gallery. I created a free ZangZing account which gives me 2 GB of free storage space. More storage space can be purchased or acquired by inviting friends to join. After joining, I clicked the Import button and clicked the MobileMe button. This lead me through a short, straightforward process to import all of my existing photo albums from MobileMe. Within minutes I’d completed my migration to ZangZing. ZangZing lets one import photos from many other photo sharing services such as Flickr, Facebook, Picasa, Dropbox, Shutterfly, Kodak Gallery, Instagram, SmugMug and PhotoBucket.

ZangZing allows you to easily share a photo album with the entire world or you can restrict to a handful of people, but each of them would need to sign up for their own free ZangZing account. You can let visitors upload or download individual photos or the entire album. Visitors can also buy prints. ZangZing integrates with iPhoto to allow easy uploading of the photos. ZangZing offers all the features that I need and more. If you’d like to learn more read this Tidbits article about ZangZing.

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Do you ever have a problem sending files to a colleague or friend because they are too big to be sent as email attachments? If so, you could use Dropbox’s Public Link feature. In a previous Tech Tip I spoke about the convenience of Dropbox’s files sharing services. Most of these services require each person on your team to have their own Dropbox account. Conveniently, Dropbox’s Public Link feature does not require that everybody have a Dropbox account. Thus, it’s a great way to share large files with friends or family. Here are some step-by-step instructions.

Note: These instructions already assume you’ve signed up for a Dropbox account and have that setup and working on your Mac.

Tip: I often use this method to share a handful of files, like photos. Since I want to only send one Public Link, I’ll put all of the photos into a folder on my Mac, then right-click (or control-click) on the folder and select Compress <folder name> (on older versions of Mac OS X, the command will read “Archive <folder name>”). This compressing will create a .zip file. I then put the .zip file into my Public Folder in Dropbox.

1. Open your Dropbox folder.

2. Open the Public folder.

3. Put the large file into your Public folder. This will trigger the automatic upload of this file onto the Dropbox server.

4. Right-click (or control-click) on the filename of this large file. A menu will appears. Select Dropbox from the menu, then select Copy Public Link from the sub-menu.

5. Open your email application and compose a new email message. Address it to your intended recipient.

7. Go to the Edit menu and select Paste to past the Public Link into the email message. The link will look similar to this:

8. Send the email.

9. The recipient can simply click on the link to download the file.

If you chose to sign up for Dropbox please consider using this link to do so, since I’ll earn a referral bonus. Thanks.

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Are you looking for an easy way to share files with your colleagues who use a mix of Macs and PCs? There are many online file sharing and storage systems, but I use and recommend Dropbox. I’ve tried a handful of systems including MobileMe’s iDisk, SugarSync, Windows LiveMesh, Box.net and GoogleDocs. While I use several of these services on an on-going basis, I think Dropbox is the most versatile and has the best mix of features that I use and care about.

Here’s a list of some of my needs:

• I want a fast, affordable, easy-to-use and secure system. I want to keep the files locally on my computer and have them get copied (synced) to my colleagues Mac or PC.
• I want to be able to share different folders with different people.
• I want to be able to access the shared folders and some of the files from my iPhone and iPad.

Dropbox meets all of these needs and has many other handy features. Here are some highlights:

• It provides status indicators when files are getting synced and optional on-screen notification messages when files have been added, deleted or edited.
• It saves older versions of files so you can retrieve a previous version.
• It lets you view your shared folders and files from their web site, so you can access any file from any computer which has an Internet connection.
• If two people simultaneously edit the same file, it’s smart enough to save both copies and point out this conflict.
• Files stored in Dropbox can be accessed on iPhones, iPads, Blackberries, Android-based phones and tablets.
• There is a special Public folder which can be used to share a file with the entire world, if you want. Any file in the public folder has a “public link” which can be put in an email or on a web site to provide an easy way for others to download this file. This is a handy way to share a file that is too large to send as an email attachment.

Dropbox is capable and versatile, but it’s not as robust as a full-fledged file server to which you might be accustomed. In particular it’s important to know that you can’t share a folder inside another shared folder. Instead you would need to create a separate shared folder outside of the shared folder. Anyone you’ve invited to a folder can then add, delete or change files within that folder. Anyone you’ve invited to a folder can then invite others to join the folder. As the owner of the folder you can see the list of people who have access and you can revoke somebody’s access privileges at any time.

You can try Dropbox for free. A free account includes 2 GB of storage space. If or when you outgrow that 2 GB of storage space you can buy more storage space. 50 GB of storage space costs $100 per year or 100 GB of storage space costs $200 per year. Give Dropbox a try. I think you’ll like it.

If you chose to sign-up for Dropbox, please consider using this link to do so since I’ll earn a referral bonus. Thanks.

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