At a recent consult configuring MobileMe for a customer already using it on two other computers, I reminded her that the service is good for much more than just email.
MobileMe provides Mail, iCal, Address Book, preferences, dock, keychain and widget synchronization between multiple Macs, web page design and hosting, and plenty of other features. As we activated some of these features in the MobileMe Preferences pane, I mentioned that MobileMe also provides a way to remotely connect to your Mac for file- and screen-sharing: Back to My Mac.
I visualized a scenario in which she was traveling with her MacBook Pro and remotely needed to connect to her office iMac. She rightly asked, “What good is this feature if my iMac is asleep?” I didn’t know off the top of my head, so, like any resourceful computer operator, I went to Google. In seconds, we realized that we weren’t the only ones wondering—Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard introduced a feature called Wake on Demand, where you can connect remotely to a sleeping Mac to share files or control the screen.
A similar feature has been in available in Mac OS X for many years, but there wasn’t an elegant way to achieve this while not on your network. If you have Snow Leopard and an active MobileMe account, and you want to use these features, there are a couple places you’ll need to adjust settings.
In the Sharing preference pane, activate File Sharing if you want access to your files from another computer and Screen Sharing if you want to take control of the screen remotely. In MobileMe preferences, you will check the Back to My Mac tab, where you can start or stop access to your computer while away from your network.
Conveniently, this tab will tell you if you have the correct network setup to support these remote features. Some non-Apple routers, switches, and wireless access points do not have support for NAT Port Mapping Protocol (NAT–PMP) or Universal Plug and Play (UPnP), or they need to be configured specifically to support Back to My Mac.
However, all Apple wireless base stations—including Time Capsule—provide this support as long as they’re running firmware version 7.4.2 or newer and are properly configured.
Back to My Mac and Wake on Demand provide a great way to access your home or office computers when traveling even if your remote Mac is sleeping.
Full details from Apple are available here.
Purchase 1 year of MobileMe here.