BACK TO MY MAC doesn't work

You don't really give enough information to determine what you're not setting correctly, but I have the opposite problem. When I'm on the road, I see way too many other Macs & Windows machines in my Shared list.

If you set up both machines correctly (and remember, both have to have .Mac accounts), I can't even begin to guess what the issue might be.

 

Back to my Mac was sketchy with 10.5.0 - in fact it barely worked.

10.5.1 seemed to fix that. So make sure you've done a software update.

Then, make sure Back to my Mac is set to 'On' under the .Mac pane of System Preferences. Also, click Sharing Preferences while you're in there to ensure that screen and file sharing are both selected.

This should be done on both machines. And of course, both machines need to be on so make sure any energy savings preferences are set to Anti-Kyoto.

If you still have issues, I don't know what to tell you. If you are trying from a Starbucks or something it's possible that they're blocking some sort of port maybe?

Who even knows? Perhaps Santa Claus, Hanukkah Harry or Kwanzaa Steve.

 

The other problem may be the router you are trying to access your home network from. I have the unholy problem of working for a company that hasn't purchased good technology since the telephone, so the router there is outdated and I can't access it from any machine. Since I can't configure it, I can't set it up to use Back to My Mac.