So, for Christmas, I decided to set up a networked hard drive for my mom, because she is a wedding planner and has consistently lost portable media while traveling and all that bullshit, but she needs to be able to access her files from several different locations. I selected a Netgear SC101 drive because it was cheap and available. I put the hard drive in it, set it all up, and can only access it from the computer with the utility installed on it from the website. This is fine, as it is definitely a start.

What I wanted to do was make the drive accessible from say, the airport WiFi or something like that, so I set it up with a static ip and set it to port 83 (does the port really matter that much or should I make it the same as a normal ftp port or something?) but have been unable to access it. I can't even access it from another computer in the network by typing in the dhcp ip as xxx.xxx.x.xxx:83

If anyone has any experience in something like this I would really appreciate it. If not, I may just take this back to school with me and get her something like the windows mini server or something. Thanks in advance

You could just set up a Remote Desktop.

Win2k3 server should do. Or 2007 if you're the fucking man.

Meh.

why am i even in this thread

I guess the purpose was in not using another computer. I thought of the option of remote desktop and didn't have the money for a legit copy of anything but maybe that would have to be the route I need to take anyways. What a waste on the network hard drive, seeing as if I was to do either of those I could either use an existing external or just the drive in the server/computer.

You could probably do well with tightvnc.

Very lightweight app, that can be installed and set up via a single batch script. So all your mum would have to do is, stick the USB in whatever machine she is using, double click the batch file. Then everything would be configured for her.

That would allow for full control over the server machine, however looking back on your post, that's not exactly what you asked. Balls...should have read more carefully.

At my uni, they have set up a tonne of network drives, can access them from anywhere in the world. Excellent service.

I'll email the admin and ask him what the setup is.

Run webserver on home computer? This would require a static IP addy.

Gentoo GNU/Linux, Samba and NFS configured, and dyndns.