Making 2 Macs talk

[miniandy]

Hi gents,

I am trying desperately to make my 2 iBook G4s talk to each other however they're not having any of it. Both require passwords, but none of the passwords I try work. I also do not ever recall setting them up. Both have airport cards, and connect to a buffalo wireless router. When i select 'connect to server' and key in the ip address of the other computer, i get a log in screen - any ideas what the log in name will be, or password?! I know it's vague but i'm struggling...

[robbieduncan]

You can use an valid username/password for a user on the target machine to log in. If you have auto-login setup and don't know the username you can get a list of existing users in System Preferences->Accounts. If there is only one user (which it sounds like there will be) the password is the one you type when installing software etc. You can reset the password here if you know the admin password (see previous) If you still don't know the main/admin password then boot off an OSX install CD/DVD and use the utilities to reset the password.

If that still doesn't work let me know

[miniandy]

You're some man - thanks very much!

I take it that if I set up my sister as a user on my machine, and myself on hers, I can log in with each username? Because at the moment, if you imagine my sister is logging into miniandy mac as miniandy, and I'm logging into sister mac as sister... Do you follow?!

[miniandy]

Oh yeah and also, how do we restrict access to each other's hard drives? I don't want her seeing some of my stuff!

[tog]

miniandy said:

Oh yeah and also, how do we restrict access to each other's hard drives? I don't want her seeing some of my stuff!

Make a new account (in the Accounts preference pane) on each machine for each other user - ie make an account called 'sister' on your machine then she can only get to her own documents there. When she connects to your machine she then logs in as 'sister', with her own password, rather than as 'miniandy' with your password. Applications are shared. By default there should be a folder in your user account called 'public' - put any documents you want her to see in there, or in the root of the hard drive. She shouldn't be able to see anything else in your user folder. There's also a folder called 'drop box' in there, where she can put things into your account (but she can't see the contents of the drop-box).

BTW, if you're doing this just to copy a load of files between machines, an easier way is to connect them with Firewire in Target disc mode. Sleep one mac, shut down the other, connect them together with a firewire cable, wake the first one, then start up the second while holding down the T key. The second mac should powerup, you'll see a firewire logo drifting around the screen and its hard drive will then appear as a removable firewire drive on the other desktop. You should be able to browse the whole drive without needing any password at all. Remember to eject the other mac (drag the icon to trash) before shutting it down by holding the power button. Much quicker way of moving large amounts of data than over a wi-fi link.

[miniandy]

Fantastic. I'll give that a go. All I was really looking to do was share a small amount of data, mainly songs/apps/videos/pictures, so she only really needs to have one folder for the lot, and vice versa. The drop box sounds interesting though. Thanks for your help!