Giving remote access to my PC

A couple of years ago, a support rep from bellsouth had me type a webaddress and that took me to a place where he joined in and was able to connect and remotely see and work on my computer. The service was free for home users and/or limited services. I saved it to my favorites but lost it the last time I reformatted my PC. Anyone know of any services like this where one can go on line and go to a website where you would start a session and allow someone less access to your PC or help someone else with their PC by gaining access to their PC remotely.?? I know about log me in and remote PC and services like that, but those are services that you would use daily to work remotely, not to just go in once and troubleshoot a situation.
Thanks

 

you can do it VNC

Here is one flavor - real vnc
some like tight vnc
Real vnc has a free version

http://www.realvnc.com/

You install the server on the computer to be controlled
You only need the viewer on the viewing computer - its only 200 k and can fit in ram or even on a diskette
to get into the other computer you simply type the ip in the box marked "server" and the password to get in
- the windows firewall has to opened to vnc on the computer to be viewed and controlled
- to track the ip if you do not know or , or it changes with dsl log ons , and occasional changes of ips with cable broadband - you can use a dns naming service such as no-ip

http://www.no-ip.com/

there is a free service
you type in the name you have assigned in the "server box" of the vnc viewer
- lastly if you have to go through a router the router will block you
You can open ports , but if the internal ip ( 192..) changes in the router you may be locked out again

http://portforward.com/guides.htm


You can set up a hamachi network
there is a free version still of hamachi

https://secure.logmein.com/products/hamachi/vpn.asp?lang=en


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamachi
a hamachi network gets through 99 % of routers

 

Yes, you can do it with VNC, but Steve suggestion of using logmein is simpler and far easier to do securely.