need help networking a mac and a pc

[minimal]

dear all,

i need some expert advice here, I need to set up a network beetween a pc and a mac (my pc specs are in the sig, mac is PB w/Tiger) since I'm going to share the studio with a guy who is a mac user. We came to the idea of networking the two computer to have both access to a common external HD (if feasible) and swap files directly without needing memory sticks or burning cds.
The networking would be for data exchange only, MIDI syncronization will be done with midi interfaces.
We both aren't computer expert so we don't even know if this is possible or not, thus any help would be highly appreciated.

all the best and stay groovy
fabio

[innerdreamrecords.com]

I did this with my PC running Win XP and my Pbook G4 - no problem just needed a cable and dig through the exisiting software.

[vsmith1]

You need to make some decisions:

Which machine will have the external HDD - that will be the sharer and the other will access the shares. For example, if the Windows has the drive then you will need to share it and any other folders/drives. The Mac user will need to Connect to the share once you have define the workgroup, username, password as well as the ipaddress and share names. The Mac user will use SMB as the method to access the Windows shares.

You need to decide how you are connecting the two machines: will you use a network hub/switch? Or a cross over ethernet cable? Or even FireWire?? Still you will both need to agree on IP address settings. If you are using a cross over cable then I suggest the 10.0.0.1-10.0.0255 range as long both of you use a different address. You will need to use 255.255.255.0 as the subnet mask and 10.0.0.0 as the gateway. Of course if you have a switch or hub then you'll no doubt pick up your addresses from the switch or hub. This can also apply if you are using WiFi just be sure that both of you know what the WEP/WPA code is.

Hope that this helps
Vince

[Angstrom]

You need to make some decisions:

Which machine will have the external HDD

yep, the crucial thing is that you cant just unplug the drive from the PC and connect it to your Mac once the PC isn't around ... mac and pc format drives differently so whatever is connected to that drive first will taint it for life.

Unless OSX now reads pc externals ?
it never used to, it could sometimes handle a removable but not an external.

[ejectorset]

my ibook works just fine with my externals (usb2 and firewire) that were previously (and still) used on pc's.

just depends on the format the drive is formatted as.

[mike holiday]

IM chat windows work good as well

[minimal]

Thanks to you all for the replies, I'll see what I can do.

all the best!