Is there any way I can remote view my dad's computer desktop? I'm in Nashville, he's in Tulsa. Both are cable modems and OSX.

He's not computer literate so everytime I try to troubleshoot he gets confuses as to what's the desktop vs. whatever. If I could see and possibly control it that would help a bunch.

Hopefully something free as opposed to buying another piece of software.

I know there's a OSX version of vnc (realvnc.com) but I think only for the paid version.

If you're running leopard, remote desktop is built in, or you can use VNC.

http://www.macfixit.com/article.php?story=20071102122311545

Is there any way I can remote view my dad's computer desktop? I'm in Nashville, he's in Tulsa. Both are cable modems and OSX.

He's not computer literate so everytime I try to troubleshoot he gets confuses as to what's the desktop vs. whatever. If I could see and possibly control it that would help a bunch.

Hopefully something free as opposed to buying another piece of software.

LogMeIn

course he'd have to do stuff on his side for this to work, but it's a great service

I know of two, but don't remember the name of the other. One is called WebEx, and it's a pay service. It's excellent. You can tell your dad to relinquish access to his desktop, and then you can control it, and do everything as if you're right on it.

I don't remember the name of the other, but it was Java-based, and many years ago.

I have no idea if either of these will work with Mac, anyway.

There's also a way to do it with NetMeeting, if you've got M$ Office. But you said OSX.

I'm sure there are some free ways of doing it, too -- see java desktop sharing.

Chicken of the VNC is a free osx vnc client, and like I said, on leopard, desktop sharing is built in. It works great. You have to make sure the right ports are forwarded on the firewall, but there's no need to get 3rd parties involved.