[thechat] 2 Mac questions

[Garrett Coakley]

On Thu, Oct 02, 2003 at 05:12:50PM +0100, Kevin Stevens wrote:

Hey Kev.

Still can't see you on the QOTSA video... you were making it up to impress
weren't you *;)

So these mac things then, are we talking about OS9 or OSX? The answers are
gonna vary depending which operating system we're talking about, but I'll
give it a shot.

but.. can't help with the Clie thing, sorry. Have you tried searching for
the apple support forums (http://www.info.apple.com/), they might be worth a
look. It's not just tech-notes, there's a pretty good forum community too.


> 1. I understand it is possible to network a Mac and a PC together, how easy
> is this and what pitfalls do I have to beware of? I have found a program at
> http://www.thursby.com/products/dave.html that seems to do the trick, anyone
> got any good/bad experience of this?

ObTechResponse: Depends what you mean by 'network' *:)

I'm gonna take a guess and say we're talking about things like sharing files
seen as thats the usual getting-macs-and-windows-to-do-stuff question.

OS9 was pretty much AppleTalk based (think TCP, but only macs spoke it), so
Dave was used to allow Macs to see Windows file shares, mount network
drives, etc.

If your friend is on OS9, then Dave is good. I used it at a previous
workplace a few years ago and it was a doddle.

(Aside: I haven't used Dave for years, I know there's an OSX version out,
but I'm at home right now and can't check what else it offers.)

OSX is a little different. Because it's built on top of BSD (think Linux's
grumpier uncle) it has stuff like Samba (http://www.samba.org) built in.
Getting my powerbook to talk to the Windows machines here at work is as
simple as pressing Apple-K and picking a server from the window. 

Getting stuff from the Mac to Windows is just as easy. Turn on 'Windows File
Sharing' in the system preferences and put the files in your Public folder
(which is pre set-up for each user).

It's nothing more than Samba running a share for each user, but the Windows
machine will see it as a bog standard NT file share. They can drag'n'drop to
their hearts content.

That's the short version anyway. Give us some specifics and we'll sort
your... *cough* ... 'friend' out no problem.

Go on, admit it, it's you isn't it?... you're a potential switcher aren't
you?

G.