I'm thinking of getting a Mac sometime and was hoping to use my old PC as a
file server. Will I need a server or can they talk to each other like my
desktop and laptop do with just a ethernet cable?

--
Smith Comma John
Human Being For President

Goliath & Wildwing's Storage Room
http://anatidae.homestead.com/

In article <craho8$9dku$1@news3.infoave.net>,
"james_anatidae" <parshallNOSPAM@citcom.net> wrote:

> I'm thinking of getting a Mac sometime and was hoping to use my old PC as a
> file server. Will I need a server or can they talk to each other like my
> desktop and laptop do with just a ethernet cable?

Yes. Mac OS X 10.3. The Network folder should allow you to browse the
network neighborhood.

In addition, you can use the Finder -> Go menu -> Connect to Server
and enter smb://host.ip.addr/share type syntax to connect to a specific
share. There are other ways to skin the cat as well.

In addition, you can share Mac files and printers with your Windows PC:

System Preferences -> Sharing -> Windows Sharing

Click Start to let selected Windows users
access shared folders on this computer using
SMB/CIFS. This will also let Windows users
print to shared printers.

Bob Harris

On 1/2/05 11:30 PM, in article craho8$9dku$1@news3.infoave.net,
"james_anatidae" <parshallNOSPAM@citcom.net> wrote:

> I'm thinking of getting a Mac sometime and was hoping to use my old PC as a
> file server. Will I need a server or can they talk to each other like my
> desktop and laptop do with just a ethernet cable?

Yes, they can talk to each other. OS X machines include file sharing
software with PCs (called SAMBA) that does what you want. However, it might
be wiser to run the server from the Mac--it will probably *much* more
reliable that way.

- Mike