Remote Desktop: Would somebody like to guide me as though I were a slow child?

[Singin Hobo]

I picked up ARD a few weeks ago based on the fact that it's a steal in the App store and the reviews raved of its superior qualities over 'Back to my Mac'. I basically manage all of the computers at my dad's home business (5 machines) and my sister's computer questions when she has them. I would love to finally stop using MobileMe so I can set up my family on their own calendars and contacts across all of their devices in that way.

The problem is that I have no idea what I'm doing. I know there's something about ports and DNS and VNP but I have no idea what I'm doing with any of it. Once I get up and running it's great, I used it on the local network at my pop's office and it was awesome, so I don't need any help once I get my feet on the ground, I am fairly certain I'm sorted out with permissions and administrators and all that. I just can't get connected when I'm remote. I need to be able to hook up to 4 desktops and two laptops. The laptops I would need access to on the go, so they won't have a static address, so to speak.

I basically need a step-by-step if anyone out there is willing to help me out... I look at network settings and it's all Greek to me.

 

[FSMBP]

Go to Apple's "Getting Started" PDF http://manuals.info.apple.com/en_US/ARD31_TO.pdf

It lays it out in basic English.

 

[Singin Hobo]

I've looked through that a couple of times... it talks a lot about what it can do but it's sort of a guide for uncertain experts, not, well, me. If you were going to set up a computer on this system what would you do and how would you go about doing that? I just give the DNS a name? Where do I do that? How does ARD know how to find the system after I do that?

I know it's probably a lot of painstaking junk to ask of somebody, but I figured it was worth a shot.

 

[Les Kern]

Okay, I have a few minutes here, and will try to explain as simply as possible.
You didn't need ARD, but it IS very cool if one day you want to take advantage of it's power. There may be an easier way, but this is how I first set it up and I like it just fine. That being said, here goes:
Set up a user on the target machine so they have access to it for remote access. That's in System Preferences > Sharing > Remote Management. (see pic) Be sure to set the permissions to do what you want it to do. That's under Options. Note the IP number of the target machine. Best to use DHCP with a static IP, the one it was given is fine. We don't want it to change.
You will need the IP of the ROUTER on each network. Jot all the numbers down.

On the router set up application/gaming support (or whatever it's called on the router) to point the proper ARD ports to the target machine. (see pic) Note that I have ARD port 3283 pointing to 192.168.1.111, where 1.11 is the address of my machine.
Now you can run ARD and enter the IP of the ROUTER and you will be routed to the target machine.
What I do not know is how you can control different machines in your group of 5. What I do from home or work is to target one machine that has ARD on it and control another machine from it, so it's ARD to ARD to machine. So you'll need to load the ARD app on the target machine at the business.

 

[Les Kern]

I just give the DNS a name?

DNS not needed.