@tech

Die hard Mac or PC fans might read this title and ask "Why on earth would you want to do that?" [BUT there's screen shots!]

Being a former PC die-hard, I still have some PCs that I still use for various things.  In fact, I only have a PowerMac G4 tower right now that stays at home on the network.  Until I finally get that elusive MacBook Pro I must continue to use my old Dell laptop.  So, I'm still very much a PC user but I prefer Macs.  After I get a MacBook Pro I'll still use PCs for some things as I've yet to find similar software that I use on my PCs that will run on a Mac.  So, there are my reasons for networking the two dissimilar platforms.

Now, while it's possible to network Macs and PCs they don't really like to play well at all together, even on a network.  I've tried repeatedly to get my stupid Windows XP PC to see my PowerMac G4 in the basement which is on my home network.  I've set all the "switches" on both machines.  I've performed countless Internet searches, reading everything I can find on the topic, discovering all sources say the same things, which I've already done with NO success.  So I gave up and have just resigned myself to using FTP, which does work.

I simply have the settings in my FTP client like this:

Host: 192.168.1.11 (my Mac network IP address)

Server Type: FTP

User: my Mac user name

Password: the password for my Mac user

Now you need to change some settings on your Mac to make this work.  In OS X 10.4 go to Sharing in System Preferences

and make sure FTP Access is enabled in both the Firewall and Services.

This actually works pretty well albeit a bit cumbersome.

Next installment: connecting to a PC from a Mac