* Jonathan Purvis <jon(a)purvis.co.nz> [2006-05-11 22:35]:
I would suggest starting with enabling an SSH server on the laptop, with access allowed only by a key, not password (half the internet will be trying to login).
I used to run a webserver on port 80 on my machine. It’d generate 1MB or so of access logs per week purely due to worm probes. Then I switched the server to a rarely used port and the access log has been silent since. So run SSH on a non-standard port and the noise will drop down to an inaudible whisper. Of course you should still use keys, not passwords.
if you need to run graphical programs you can either use VNC or ssh -X to display the windows on your desktop.
Remote X connections over anything slower than LAN are painful. Even DSL doesn’t really help. VNC runs much nicer. Regards, -- Aristotle Pagaltzis // <http://plasmasturm.org/>