Daughter in LA, me in MD. Can we share MBP?

[Just-me]

Hello.
My daughter is in LA, I am in MD. We both have MacBook Pro's.
Is there a way I can hook up an external hard disk to mine and my daughter can read, copy etc' as if it was hooked up to her's? If there is, please explain in detail, no too much knowledge in computers here.
Any help would be VERY appreciated.
Thank you in advance.
Saul

 

[emotta]

any external hard drive can be used to copy information from one mac to another.

 

[claimed4all]

Very possible to do. Your best bet would be to set up a "net share" with the hard drive connected to the router, that way your laptop does not need to be online. Some routers make this very easy to do.
So what kind of router do you have?

 

[GGJstudios]

First you get a reeeeeeally long cord.....

Seriously, check out Dropbox as a method of sharing files remotely.

 

[eldy]

Where does your daughter go to school? I'll be able to help her out.

 

[Just-me]

Very possible to do. Your best bet would be to set up a "net share" with the hard drive connected to the router, that way your laptop does not need to be online. Some routers make this very easy to do.
So what kind of router do you have?

Thanks for the response claimed4all.
It's an Airport Extreme.
How do I set up a "net share"?

 

[Just-me]

First you get a reeeeeeally long cord.....

Seriously, check out Dropbox as a method of sharing files remotely.

Yeah, it's gonna be a looooooong walk to Home Depot......
I just heard of VNC and I am going to try that, along with what you all said.
Thanks a lot.

 

[claimed4all]

With an Airport Extreme you can hook a hard drive up to it directly.
Now since you more than likely have a dynamic IP you will need a service like DynDNS. You register for an account and it runs a small app on a machine on the network. It updates your IP to a server whenever it changes and gives you an address to get to your router. Then follow below, I do not have an Airport Extreme so I am using someone elses answer.

"The presence of AirPort Disks can be advertised via Bonjour, and they can be shared over the Ethernet WAN port to the Internet, as well as over the local Ethernet LAN port and local wireless network."

Therefore, I can extrapolate the following. If your Airport Extreme is plugged directly into your cable modem or DSL modem via its WAN port and it's assigned a publicly-addressable IP number, then it should be simply a matter of using the Go->Connect to Server option in the Finder to connect to:

afp://x.x.x.x

Where x.x.x.x is the publicly-accessible IP number assigned to your Airport Extreme Base Station. While I haven't looked in the administration software, I'm willing to be there's a checkbox somewhere in the settings for the AirDisk that has to be enabled to allow access to the shared AirDisk from the WAN port (rather than the default LAN port).

A Link to another article here that may help.

 

[alphaod]

Just enabled FTP on your computers, set up a dyndns.org account if your ISP doesn't give you a static IP. Also if you have more than one computer, you can forward port 22 to your computer's IP and it should work.

You can also get MobileMe and share the iDisk.

Of course many universities have bandwidth limits for the students, so if your daughter goes to a school in LA with a bandwidth limit, it's unlikely you can share much. If we know what school she goes to, it may be easier for us to find you a better solution if possible.

 

[Just-me]

Hello all. Just got back from a trip.
I will try your suggestions and update here how it is going.
Thanks for your replies and for your time.

 

[msprouls]

Another vote for Dropbox, it works great.

Dropbox

 

[maestrokev]

Cloud computing is the way to go, that means storing and sharing your files on the internet.

ZumoDrive gives 1GB free and lets you both access the files on the internet.

Alternatively, try Dropbox which gives each of you a 2GB account and then you can choose which folders to share with each other and syncs automatically. If you click on my Dropbox link you can sign up with an additional 256MB.

I use both services to share files with other family members.

 

[Zyniker]

Ease of use option: MobileMe.
If you sign up for MobileMe and you both use the same login (that part is key), then your respective computers should show up in the Finder's sidebar on the other's computer. Simple, straightforward...no arcane DNS fun.