For as long as I can remember, I've had my computers set up to allow me to log in and view them from afar. I'm sure I've played with (er, sorry, "evaluated") just about every technology relating to this space.

I recently came across ShowMyPC.com, which is an open source project. This is a drop-dead simple wrapper of SSH and VNC to quickly and easily allow remote access to computers. If you need to do support for your tech-challenged friends, have them go and click the "Show My PC to Remote User" link, click Start, and give you the password. Then you can run the viewer side, enter the password and you're good to go.

There are some minor items that would make this a better offering (run in service mode, longer session support, etc.), but in the meantime, it is a very compelling product.