Creating a network "shortcut" or "alias" to another machine

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Level 1

8 points

Creating a network "shortcut" or "alias" to another machine

I work at a video production company and we have several computers networked together. We are constantly connecting various external storage drives to the different computers to work on projects. These external drives usually do noy stay attached to the same computer since we are constantly moving projects to different computers. We recently finally got our network working properly so that we are able to connect from one computer to another and share the external drives. I was wondering if there was any way to make some kind of "shortcut" or "alias" to the various computers directly on the desktop so we can easily select which drives we would like to mount right from there. For example, my computer I am currently working on is named "comp001", and the computer I would like to access is named "comp002" in the network folder. If I try to drag that computer icon from the finder to the desktop it says that I do not have permission. Any Ideas? I know that it is possible to make a shortcut to a drive, but like I said earlier since we are moving the drives around to different computers this would not make sense. If you have any other questions please let me know! Thanks!!

Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Posted on Jan 9, 2007 3:26 PM

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Answer 1

Camelot

Level 9

58,527 points

Jan 9, 2007 4:40 PM in response to rberdinka

> If I try to drag that computer icon from the finder to the desktop it says that I do not have permission.

Don't drag the icon. Select it, then use File -> Make Alias to make an alias of the server which you can then put wherever you like.

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Answer 2

BDAqua

Level 10

250,259 points

Jan 9, 2007 4:50 PM in response to rberdinka

Once you connect to a share, you should see it on the Desktop already! Unless you're connecting some way I don't know about.

If they in fact do show up on the Desktop, then create a new Folder maybe named Shares on/in the Desktop, drag all those Shares shown on the Desktop to that Folder, drag that Folder to the right side of the Dock between Applications & Trash, this should give you a popup menu to select from.:-)

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Answer 3

rberdinka Author

Level 1

8 points

Jan 10, 2007 9:09 AM in response to rberdinka

Thanks for the responses but I am still unable to accomplish what I would like. The "shortcut" or "alias" that I would like to make it not to a hard drive itself... it is to the computer. Like I said before, since I am moving external drives around it would not make sense to make a shortcut directly to the drive since the naxt time I try to connect to it it could be attached to a different computer, so the shortcut would not work. What I want is to make a shortcut to the computer itself, so then once I click on the I get the list of the current drives attached to that machine that I can mount. Here is an example again. In the finder I click on the network icon, then I click on the folder labeled My Network. Inside the My Network folder there are several computers listed. What I want is to make shortcuts to those computers and put the shortcuts on the desktop. Let me know if there are any other questions. Thanks again for the help!!

Mac OS X (10.4.8)

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Answer 4

Jan 10, 2007 9:18 AM in response to rberdinka

press command+K buttons and register the macs in your favorites server

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Answer 5

rberdinka Author

Level 1

8 points

Jan 10, 2007 9:26 AM in response to Federico_82

Ok, I registered the other macs so they would show in my favorites. Now is there anyway I can make some kind of shortcut to them on the desktop?

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Answer 6

Jan 10, 2007 9:44 AM in response to rberdinka

i think it's the fastest way.. anyway if you want you can create a workflow with automator and then create a shortcut.

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Answer 7

rberdinka Author

Level 1

8 points

Jan 10, 2007 10:04 AM in response to Federico_82

THANK YOU!! I have never used automator before but I figured it out rather quickly and it works exactly as I had wished. Thank you very much for your help!!

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