Trouble connecting from an inexperienced non-technical new person

[Rick Keating-Fedders]

At the risk of appearing foolish - the newbie that I am - I am having
trouble connecting to my two computers.  I have a netgear firewall which I
think I have set up right and I have turned off Windows firewall - yet I
still can't connect.  I have looked at some of the answers others have found
in the archives but nothing works.  The frustrating thing is - I did have it
working very breifly two days ago but somehow cannot repeat it.  The ping
works between the two but vnc does not.  |Any help appreciated for this
newbie.

Rick