Get To Your Mac From Any Web Browser, iPhone

The best selling Macs are notebooks, which means we often take our work, music, photos, files with us. What about when you don’t?

What about using your Mac’s files when your Mac is at home or work, and you’re not? Not so easy, right? Not so fast.

FarFinder is a handy Mac utility and service which lets you get to your Mac’s files even when you’re not in front of your Mac.

Think of it this way. You’re at work. Your Mac is at home. You need some files from your Mac. Use FarFinder to log into your Mac, find your files, copy them back to wherever you are.

Yes, it’s easier said than done. There are all kinds of issues which make it difficult to login to your home Mac. There’s firewalls and routers in the way. Those pesky DHCP IP addresses constantly change.

FarFinder makes it easy by giving you an easy to use, easy to remember URL; a link which gets you back to your Mac without using Apple’s expensive and convoluted MobileMe service, yet does much more.

If you’re at work or away, and your Mac is at home or in the office, you can use nearly any web browser to login to your Mac. Windows PC, someone else’s Mac, or even a Linux PC.

All you need is an internet connection, and a supported web browser (typically Firefox, Camino, Safari, or Internet Explorer).  FarFinder sets up on your Mac so it can be accessed by your when you’re away from the Mac.

Your customized URL is the place to start, and allows you to login to your Mac remotely. Why? So you can download or upload files from your Mac to wherever you are at the time.

Your Mac remains protected and your files secure, yet any files you upload or download are also transferred safely. Spotlight lets you search and find files quickly, easily.

Get this. If your home or office Mac has an iSight camera, you can login remotely and see who’s using your Mac, or just to snoop around. Nanny cam, anyone?

FarFinder is developed by the same folks who publish Webjimbo, which is a remote utility for YoJimbo users, so they have some experience dealing with the intracacies of remote access.

This kind of technology is a part of Apple’s MobileMe Back to Your Mac service. It’s simply less expensive, and works from Windows PCs, other Macs, Linux PCs, and even your iPhone.

There are a few negatives. Using Microsoft’s Internet Explorer version 6.x is still problematic, what with the poor implementation of web standards. Mac users must have OS X Leopard running on their home or office Mac.

The iPhone can be used to access your Mac at home, but the native iPhone FarFinder utility isn’t yet available, though it will be able to transfer files between your Mac and iPhone.

FarFinder’s set up was easy, though I had to make an adjustment in my DSL modem/router. FarFinder doesn’t like what amounts to two firewalls, and I use Apple’s TimeCapsule to connect to my DSL modem/router.

Once I got it set up, FarFinder let me login to my home Mac from my next door neighbor’s PC, and my husband could login from his Mac at work—all they needed was my custom URL, a browser, and an internet connection.

Why bother with this extra effort? Isn’t this just a solution looking for a problem? That all depends upon your needs. There are times when I’m not at home but what I need is a file that’s on my home Mac.

Other times I want to move files from my Mac notebook to my husband’s Mac at home. The nanny cam option is good, too, since it lets me login to the Mac at home and view what’s going on using the Mac’s iSight camera.

Big Brother? NannyCam? Or, just plain snooping? Hey, it’s my house, my Mac, my camera, and my business. This feature is worth the cost of FarFinder all by itself.