Networking a Mac and a PC

[AndyLucia]

It has become apparent that we have a number of those strangely discerning people here, the Mac user. I wonder if any of you are able to help me with a little problem?

My son (who, you may recall, lives with his mother in East Angular) has recently 'inherited' a Mac (Powermac 6.1?) from his grandfather, who has just bought a new one. My ex had been looking to network this Mac to share the internet connection of their existing PC (he's not allowed to use the PC without supervision; he is 13, and his hormones have discovered what the Web is really for! ), but has failed totally to solve the problem - in the process good ol' PC World have sold her lots of useless hardware!!!

Has anybody had to do this, or has any suggestions?

Thanks

[Hells Bells]

Not a MAC user, but I came across this link when searching for an answer to a networking problem of my own.
http://www.homepcnetwork.com/pcmacp2ovrf.htm

[AndyLucia]

Thanks Helen. I had found that one as well, and gleaned some good info from it. Strange how all the little Mac gurus are so quiet at the moment!

[enid]

Sorry I'm here - but I'd rather be called a Mac lover than a Mac guru - I'm guru of nothing!

But here's what you do according to my Mac guru - my daughter:

well it's easy. you just plug them both in to a switch or router or conenct them to the same wireless network. the important thing is to see each other they need to be in the same workgroup. you set this when you configure the network connection on each computer. they won't just see each other by being on the same subnet. but then 2 pcs won't do that either.

[enid]

if you want more detail this is a useful article. only the first 3 points really apply to setting up a home network. do these and your pcs and macs will happily co-exist http://articles.techrepublic.com.com/51 ... 27492.html

[Partridge]

Hi Andy

Have asked hub and he says 'Put a router or hub on your internet connection and both mac and pc should be able to share your internet connection. Don't know if you will need any software with powermac 6.1 as this is an old op system. I can find out and let you know if you want'.

No, I do not understand a word of that but there you go

[A-two]

I'm certainly no expert, so not disagreeing with anyone, but tried to set up a cross platform wireless network with an old Mac a few years ago and found it wasn't as easy as everyone said.

My desktop PC had built in ethernet and was hard wired into a cable modem (no wireless router at that time) and we also had an iBook that predated ethernet, around 266mhz, running OX 9. At that processing speed on a dial up connection, the average home page was taking several minutes to load. Even eBay became impossible, so fixing the connection speed wasn't going to solve it, it also needed a faster processor, more memory/RAM etc.

Applemac's website has a library which is a great resource for older machines. I started there, then called their tech support, eventually being transferred to sales, where I bought an airport card with base station. The Airport wasn't cheap, maybe $300 or more, but still cheaper than buying a new PC.

I couldn't get the airport connection to work, and tech support couldn't explain why. They said it could have been the density of walls in our house or things too far apart, the airport system signal wasn't strong enough to talk to the modem, or maybe I got out of bed the wrong side that day, who knows why. Anyway, it didn't work, so in the end, I returned it all for a full refund, installed a Linksys wireless router costing $49 for the other PCs and the iBook lived out the rest of it's life on a dedicated dial-up account at $10 a month. It worked fine for IM and email, but had severe problems with browsing, frequently crashing, which gave us a huge advantage in controlling the amount of teenager browsing of unsuitable sites, so we kept it as long as we could get away with it (:twisted: )

My daughter recently dusted it off and traded it for a ping pong table with the younger brother of a friend of hers. It's new owner is a 12 yr old geek, who has since taken the thing apart and upgraded to OX10 at no cost, don't ask me how, but he's thrilled with it and is probably driving a recording studio with it right now. It certainly has it's uses that most of my generation have a hard time imagining. You might want to suggest to your 13 yr old that he talk to his friends; they are really into this stuff and if getting online is involved, nothing will stand in their way ....

Well done to your ex for controlling his surfing habits at home, but he's going to have access anyway, at his friend's home where the parents are not so vigilant. Accepting that he's going to be exploring and educating him about the risks is also part of the solution.

All of which reminds me that we have yet to see the little geek produce the ping-pong table ...

[Giddy Goat]

You might want to suggest to your 13 yr old that he talk to his friends; they are really into this stuff and if getting online is involved, nothing will stand in their way ....

Too true Joanna! Hope the ping-pong table turns up soon - though I think the geek will get more mileage from his re-vamped Mac than he did from ping-pong!

I'm not a Mac guru, just think they're cool looking and very user friendly - especially the mouse, which doesn't need a left click or a right click: a difficult manoeuvre with hooves...MG and HelenB - Joanna too - I think the family was perhaps a little hasty in parting company with your Mac!

[AndyLucia]

Thanks for all the help and advice folks, I'm putting together an idiot-proof guide for them to follow.

Joanna, the problem was that my ex wasn't controlling his surfing habits, despite this being the second time. She tends to react by overreacting (if that makes sense), I think she's forgotten what it's like to be a teenager!! Luckily I'm on the end of a phone, and the end of several visits, to provide a little balance.

I'm not saying my ex is difficult, but she has never really been the same since Dorothy landed that house on her sister!

[enid]

To answer Joanna's points:

It's like saying I bought my kid an old banger and it doesn't work as well as my new car... The world does move on making things much easier. It is true it wasn't as easy a few years ago using older operating systems. In fact networking full stop wasn't as easy a few years ago. It's also easy assuming you use a router as the point of internet access for all computers in your household which is now a much more affordable option.

Whilst you can do a lot with older hardware you have to accept it won't work like new. So as Joanna says you can fix the connectivity issues but if the machine also needs a faster processor and more hardware then your experience isn't going to be the same as your newer machines. Anything that predates ethernet isn't really optimised for networking.

Also official support channels aren't usually as good for older machines. For help with retro hardware I would always hit the forums/community. There will be people out there doing it.

Home networking became much easier with Windows XP and Mac OSX 10.1. The first thing I would do is upgrade the operating system - if you can http://www.apple.com/macosx/upgrade/requirements.html

If not and you are running an older machine you may well need software to help create the networking connection
http://www.macwindows.com/Network.html
http://www.thursby.com/products/dave.html

I also agree education about safe surfing skills is vital and better than content filtering but if you need software then I don't think content barrier ( http://www.intego.com/contentbarrier/) will work on older macs but kidsgogogo (http://www.makienterprise.com/kggg/kidsgogogo.html ) has a classic version).

[AndyLucia]

Well, sprog visited us this weekend, so I was able to get some more info. It turns out the Mac is a G4 iMac, running Max OS X v 10.4 so there should be no issues; possibly an indication that the staff at the Peterborough branches of PC World and the Apple shop don't know what they are talking about?

As their own home PC is relatively new it will also, undoubtedly, have a network connection as standard, so this should be an easy one to sort. I might leave it for a week or so before I broach the subject with her again!!

[Giddy Goat]

I'm not saying my ex is difficult, but she has never really been the same since Dorothy landed that house on her sister!

Does sound a bit difficult to the outsider - but, bit off topic, what was that about - did I miss something Andy?

[AndyLucia]

I'm not saying my ex is difficult, but she has never really been the same since Dorothy landed that house on her sister!

Does sound a bit difficult to the outsider - but, bit off topic, what was that about - did I miss something Andy?

It's my totally unsubtle "My ex is the wicked witch of the west" Wizard of Oz-type analogy! Interestingly my mother, who has always maintained that there are two sides to every story, now uses that term about her when she speaks to her own church friends!!!