For the better part of almost a year i've been scouring the net on how to connect two computers both of which are connected to isps that block all incoming port requests. i've come to a conclusion that at least on the server side at least one port must be open for two computers to communicate. it started when i was trying to connect pcanywhere over the internet..i learned the hard way about port blocking, firewalls, and finally the greed of isps trying to make you cough out equiv. of 200 dollars per month just to have business-plan connection (vs home-plan) which have open ports. Since i'm not even hosting light-traffic web server but for only for remote access and vpns, and sql calls (for learning), i'm wondering if there is a free service like logmein, where a client software sits at the host computer and connects out (outgoing) to a maintained server(logmein's) instead of having the host computer listen for connections from the internet.. logmein was a great solution for remote access but i'm further looking for a similar service that's not only for remote access but also for general port forwarding so all kinds of applications can connect from a remote computer to a host computer via vpn, odbc, file sharing, sql calls, etc...
e.g.: client software running on host-> free public server <- client software running on remote (both host and remote connected to a maintained server)
effectively becoming: host <- remote (public server port forwards remote computers request to host computer and vice versa)
and effectively allowing: host to serve out data to remote via sql connection;
pcanywhere can connect host to remote, etc...
ANY SUGGESTIONS?