Just a small point before I begin... Those articles you're complaining about... It's not you, it's them. As someone who can understand them, I can tell you that you'd be no better off than you are now. About 3/4 of any given article, on average, is nothing but a bunch of fluff. It's the whole, "many words that don't say anything" sort of sitution. The remainder is usually so simplistic that it's completely useless, because if you've advanced enough to be able to understand what's being said, you would have already thought of that.

That being said, if you want to be able to transfer files, look into OpenSSH and some of the various front ends to it. It's an encrypted means of remote control for a system, and also includes SFTP and SCP which are file transfer tools. Don't expect to be able to get your desktop's desktop in a window on your laptop or anything like that... Use VNC for that. OpenSSH's SFTP and SCP are great for grabbing files you may need while at a remote location, not much else.