I almost exclusively use Linux so excuse me if I'm forgetting something regarding other platforms...

I prefer sshfs for this task. Using ssh (which is pretty platform agnostic) can mount remote file systems as local. SSHFS however requires Linux* client. For example if the client is N810 no issues. if the client is iphone kinda screwed. If the client is Windows, there is DokanSSHFS which emulates the needed Linux kernel pieces and is extremely slow.

The beauty of it is that you can run a SSH server such as MobaSSH on Windows, OpenSSH-server on Linux, AFAIK openssh is default in OSX, and I believe there are ssh servers for android, symbian, ifone, etc.

You need FUSE and sshfs packages installed (and I honestly don't recall what other dependencies) on client (assuming N810) then:

$ sshfs USER@remotemachine:/directory/ /mount/point
$ sshfs root@192.168.1.100:/ /media/desktop

will allow you to access the entire filesystem of another machine as if it were local (which means any program can see it, no dealing with which programs are aware of SAMBA shares or what not). Obviously the mount point has to exist and have correct permissions.

It would then be available in whatever filemanager you want (provided you can navigate to it. a good mountpoint for the default filemanager would be /home/user/MyDocs/remote ).

Maybe this is too much of pain in a mixed environment but it keeps my N810, x86 Linux desktop and NAS all on the same page.


EDIT: Also for "dumb" clients, the python script woof.py is awesome. Works over the internet if you forward/open a port on your router and only requires a web browser on the client side.

http://meiga.igalia.com/