Sharing files over a home network...

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Sharing files over a home network...

I have a 2 year old iMac sitting in my basement.. I use it, and it is currently home to a ton of photos, videos and sound files (Logic as well as itunes). This week I plan on getting a Macbook to tootle with on the main floor (the basement is cold. ;))

I would love to be able to share files (and back them up as well.. kinda a nother issue).

As it stands right now, I have a 250 GB external drive which is backing up the iMac (but has hit it's limit).. need more space.

in addition I have a D-Link DLR 655... great little router. I believe it has Network capability in that I think through something called SharePort it can help you share files across a network.. no idea how.

So, yeah, that's about it.. anyone have any good tips in terms of building out a comprehensive backup system in conjunction with a file sharing capability across two macs (and maybe even a PC or two) across my home network?

Finally, how would that even work.. let's say I have an image on the imac, when I open it on the macbook, would I see it in iPhoto?

Lotsa questions.. thank you so much.

Jay.

iMac Duo Core, Mac OS X (10.4.5)

Posted on Mar 4, 2009 7:09 AM

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Answer 1

cre8ivjay Author

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Mar 6, 2009 10:17 PM in response to cre8ivjay

bump

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Answer 2

Mar 7, 2009 2:04 AM in response to cre8ivjay

Hi

Its not that obvious from the supplied information if you're talking about OSX Server? Perhaps your question might get more attention if you posted here:

http://discussions.apple.com/category.jspa?categoryID=235

Which is the main Leopard Forum. You could also look here:

http://discussions.apple.com/forum.jspa?forumID=599

Click 'more options' in the Search field, select All, Last Year and key in 'networking'. Should reveal something? This article might help:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1433

What you're asking is simple enough. Connect all of your nodes (network devices; eg: macs, pcs, printers etc) to a switch or router or combination of the two. Depends on how many nodes you have. Wired (Ethernet) or Wireless will do. Make sure the router is providing IP addresses. Basically is its built-in DHCP Service switched on? By default most of them are. Once that's done and you've verified they can all access the internet, enable File Sharing. System Preferences > Sharing for the Macs and for the PCs right click the 'C' drive > Properties > Sharing.

Backup is a vast subject and its difficult to be concise. A lot depends on your skill set, means, budget and location. You could search this and the XServe/XServe RAID Forums as it has been discussed many times. A basic principle is to make sure you can effectively restore what you backup. Most people forget this when implementing an effective backup strategy. To start you off purchase a large enough external hard drive. Connect to all your macs and simply drag/drop what you want. If you have Leopard use Time Machine. For the PCs use something appropriate. Photos & Music can be transferred from mac to mac by simply enabling the options in the applications themselves. ITunes > Preferences > Sharing: Look for Shared Libraries; Share this Library. When you launch iPhoto hold down the option key. It's fairly obvious after that.

If you double-click on an image presented in the Finder (shared) on one mac then your mac will use whatever application it can find that it thinks can handle the file. For image files that could be Preview or Quicktime or if you have it installed an image editing application such as Photoshop. You can even define which application handles which type of file by control-clicking on the file itself and selecting 'Open With'. This is fairly basic 'how to use your mac' stuff which you should know?

Tony

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