Case Study - Helping Maintain Family Computer

Background: My brother and I are partners in a Supper Club in northern Wisconsin (Peterson's Trailside Inn). He uses his computer to keep the company books and for email. My brother has a strong business background but has no computer background.

Problem: In order to keep up on running the business, he zips up his data files and emails them to me each month. On a dialup connection, this is quite slow. Also, he'll occasionally have problems with his computer, or maybe doesn't understand how to perform some complex task.

Solution: In order to help my brother with his computer, I installed DNS4Me on his computer and registered a domain for him. I installed Serv-U so that I can download or upload files when required. To connect to his computer using FTP Voyager, I use the domain name I received through our DNS4Me service. No matter what his IP address is, I can connect to his computer because DNS4Me registers his IP address with the DNS4Me service.

To show my brother how to perform operations on his computer I installed RealVNC, a remote desktop software application. When I connect to his computer I actually see his screen and I can move the mouse around performing various operations as if I was sitting in front of his computer.

Benefits: Without having to teach my brother about IP addresses and how to find out his current IP address, I can connect to his computer to show him how to do certain operations, and to upload or download files when I need to. Since the supper club is a 4-hour drive one-way, this saves us a great deal of time.

- Mark P. Peterson - Vice President, RhinoSoft.com