When it is just me trying to access over the internet, I use SSH (sshfs) rather than FTP. In addition to ssh access to terminal and ability to connect through most FTP software, lots of stuff you can do with tunnels for vnc, rsync etc as well with practically no additional effort or risk. Off topic, but rsync actually lets you set up your own private dropbox style cloud storage, without having to jack around with storage limits or their dubious security policies. And using rsync to make hard link backups is pretty cool too.

For NAS on home network I just set up NFS shares, you don't need a specific distro to do so. . A lot easier and more stable than samba in my experience, unless you have windows clients that require it.

Yeah, I'm still alive Jan :) . Just on lousy mobile phone internet until we move into our new place in a fortnight.

Yeah, been down here in Tas for better part of 6 months now. We've bought a nice place and set to move in next week. Then only a couple of weeks until we FINALLY get some ADSL again.

How you going with getting down to Australia?