Can this work?

[tomroth]

My audio playlist is on my work laptop that I bring home. My basement computer is hooked to my audio receiver which is connected to my porch speakers. I play MP3's from my computer on those speakers. Still with me? I can get this to work just fine locally using VLC 0.8.5 hardwired to my network.

Here's the problem.

My laptop has wireless and some moron around me (a couple, actually) leaves their wireless router unlocked, so I can easily access the internet thanks to them. I want to access VLC in the basement via my browser on my laptop. I will use a playlist on the basement computer. I can't get through to VLC doing this. Any ideas? I use zone alarm for my firewall but have allowed VLC to run throught it, I think.

Please, any ideas are welcome.

[Guest]

Sure! You need to ask the morons to set up port forwarding for you!

[tomroth]

I can even access their router. Is that all that I need to do?

[Guest]

Wow! You weren't kidding! No password?

Ya! Set a port forwarding. For most routers the online help will show you how! You can also set your computer for the DMZ for a test. This by passes the hardware firewall found in most routers but generally for only one machine out of the total that the router supports. Be aware that when you make changes to a router, most often it will drop any connection that is going on and reset. But I guess this is no different than renewing the system that does the same thing for any IP when it reaches a preset number of days and could be passed off as this by the end user.

I can't believe I'm sitting her telling you how to share your neighbors Internet connection.