Hi All,

First I will tell you that I am not a MAC user or owner so please be
patient :) 

I have a friend who runs a small business and they have two MAC
computers in the office that are networked together and share files.
The main MAC has approx 20,000 files that they share and update. 

One of the people will be moving away and they want to be able to
connect over the Internet to the main MAC and share the files just
like they do in the office today. They need to be able to have the
master files on the main MAC in the office and allow the other person
to easily access and update the master files so they are always up to
date on the main MAC. They update 50 to 60 files a day in this manner
and want a way to continue to do this when the other person moves
away.

I have seen many different applications for the PC such as gotomyPC
PCanywhere etc but i am not sure how to do this with a MAC to MAC via
the Internet.

If anyone has any suggestions i would really appreciate the help.
Again I am not sure if this is a built in feature in the MAC that they
can turn on and use or if they would need an application to do this.

Please keep in mind that these people are not MAC gurus and they need
something that is simple to install and use. I am not a MAC user and
do not live close enough to offer any hands on assistance so they need
to be able to do this on their own.


thanks for your time....
gene

Gene wrote:

> First I will tell you that I am not a MAC user or owner so please be
> patient :)

1. We knew that when we saw the subject! "MAC" is the acronym of Media
Access Control. It appears that you mean to refer to the brand of
computers made by Apple. That would be "Mac," short for Macintosh (and
not MACintosh."

2. You should know this because you /should/ be using Macs. You would
do yourself and the entire on-line community a favor by reducing the
amount of spyware, viruses, DOS attacks, and other nasty things that
are associated so closely with the Typhoid Mary of Operating Systems.

> I have a friend who runs a small business and they have two MAC
> computers in the office that are networked together and share files.
> The main MAC has approx 20,000 files that they share and update. 
> 
> One of the people will be moving away and they want to be able to
> connect over the Internet to the main MAC and share the files just
> like they do in the office today. They need to be able to have the
> master files on the main MAC in the office and allow the other person
> to easily access and update the master files so they are always up to
> date on the main MAC. They update 50 to 60 files a day in this manner
> and want a way to continue to do this when the other person moves
> away.
> 
> I have seen many different applications for the PC such as gotomyPC
> PCanywhere etc but i am not sure how to do this with a MAC to MAC via
> the Internet.
> 
> If anyone has any suggestions i would really appreciate the help.
> Again I am not sure if this is a built in feature in the MAC that they
> can turn on and use or if they would need an application to do this.
> 
> Please keep in mind that these people are not MAC gurus and they need
> something that is simple to install and use. I am not a MAC user and
> do not live close enough to offer any hands on assistance so they need
> to be able to do this on their own.

Apple Remote Desktop -- commercial software from Apple. SSH, built into
every Mac. Good introduction at
<http://itexpress.ucdavis.edu/help/tutorials/openssh.shtml>. There are
other solutions. Nothing personal here, but these people should contact
a professional Mac consultant rather than a Windoze guy. A Google
search that includes the name of the city in which the business is
located will most likely be fruitful.

Davoud

-- 
usenet *at* davidillig dawt com

In article <arohb2djju2g3sa99k3h0knq45l3t0i5gr@4ax.com>,
 Gene <no_spam@here.com> wrote:

> Hi All,
> 
> First I will tell you that I am not a MAC user or owner so please be 
> patient :) 
> 
> I have a friend who runs a small business and they have two MAC 
> computers in the office that are networked together and share files. 
> The main MAC has approx 20,000 files that they share and update. 
> 
> One of the people will be moving away and they want to be able to 
> connect over the Internet to the main MAC and share the files just 
> like they do in the office today. They need to be able to have the 
> master files on the main MAC in the office and allow the other person 
> to easily access and update the master files so they are always up to 
> date on the main MAC. They update 50 to 60 files a day in this manner 
> and want a way to continue to do this when the other person moves 
> away.
> 
> I have seen many different applications for the PC such as gotomyPC 
> PCanywhere etc but i am not sure how to do this with a MAC to MAC via 
> the Internet.
> 
> If anyone has any suggestions i would really appreciate the help. 
> Again I am not sure if this is a built in feature in the MAC that 
> they can turn on and use or if they would need an application to do 
> this.
> 
> Please keep in mind that these people are not MAC gurus and they need 
> something that is simple to install and use. I am not a MAC user and 
> do not live close enough to offer any hands on assistance so they 
> need to be able to do this on their own.

Apple has built such capabilities in to OS X.  Here's the simplest 
approach, although the article looks to be rather old and may be out of 
date:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106461

VNC would also be an option, perhaps slightly more complicated to set up 
but offering a rather better user experience:

http://www.redstonesoftware.com/vnc.html

Hope this helps!

In article <arohb2djju2g3sa99k3h0knq45l3t0i5gr@4ax.com>,
 Gene <no_spam@here.com> wrote:

> Hi All,
> 
> First I will tell you that I am not a MAC user or owner so please be
> patient :) 
> 
> I have a friend who runs a small business and they have two MAC
> computers in the office that are networked together and share files.
> The main MAC has approx 20,000 files that they share and update. 
> 
> One of the people will be moving away and they want to be able to
> connect over the Internet to the main MAC and share the files just
> like they do in the office today. They need to be able to have the
> master files on the main MAC in the office and allow the other person
> to easily access and update the master files so they are always up to
> date on the main MAC. They update 50 to 60 files a day in this manner
> and want a way to continue to do this when the other person moves
> away.
> 
> I have seen many different applications for the PC such as gotomyPC
> PCanywhere etc but i am not sure how to do this with a MAC to MAC via
> the Internet.
> 

VNC is free but very buggy. Timbuktu is a well-known and respected Mac 
program for remote control.

Mac systems today are all based on a UNIX foundation.  More specifically,
the BSD variant of UNIX. That said, UNIX based systems have been doing
everything the Windows systems have been doing and longer than they have as
well.

Sharing files can done in number of different ways, using a number of
different technologies that exist within UNIX and also within Mac OS X as
well.

Generally sharing files on a LAN is not a big deal and the most simplistic
implementations are generally effective as the LAN is usually not visible to
the outside world of the Internet.

Sharing files across the Internet, in this concept, a WAN, is more
problematic. Generally you want to use protocols that are effective in
establishing and maintaining reliable connections, and in addition, you must
consider the need to provide a high level of security. One needs to consider
the security of the two separate LAN's being opened up to the Internet, and
you must also consider the need to secure the connection between the two
machines so that data moved back and forth is not compromised. This means
something SSH tunnelling being used. This can become an issue to configure
as generally, turning on SSH, inherently turns off all other network
connections unless specific configuration options are put in place.

Another issue that comes up is that most personal and business connections
to the Internet are made with floating IP addresses and this means that from
day to day, week to week or even sometimes hour to hour, the IP address at
one or both ends of the connection is in a state of constant change. This
can be addressed by usually paying more to the ISP to get a Static IP
address at each end and setting up registered domains with DNS entries
handled by the ISP's or, one can make effective use of Dynamic DNS.

I hope that this has given you sufficient information to consider for
further research or with which to query any consultant that you hire.

FWIW, if doing the same with Windows, the considerations are generally the
same.

In article <arohb2djju2g3sa99k3h0knq45l3t0i5gr@4ax.com>, Gene
<no_spam@here.com> wrote:

> First I will tell you that I am not a MAC user or owner so please be
> patient :) 

And by MAC, you probably mean "Macintosh Apple Computer", what others call
"Mac". :-)

> One of the people will be moving away and they want to be able to
> connect over the Internet to the main MAC and share the files just
> like they do in the office today. They need to be able to have the
> master files on the main MAC in the office and allow the other person
> to easily access and update the master files so they are always up to
> date on the main MAC. They update 50 to 60 files a day in this manner
> and want a way to continue to do this when the other person moves
> away.

There are two UNIX solutions:

- Under Mac OS X.4.7 or later, one can use 'rsync' (with an '-E' option
for Mac files), which can be automated using 'crontab', if the computer is
made sure to not be in a coma during backup time, say via System
Preference/Energy Saver/Options. See the 'man' pages of these two
programs.

- One can use 'ssh', either from the console (like Terminal), or via
Finder GUI in the program Fugu.

-- 
  Hans Aberg

If they need more security, they should check a vpn solution.

Davoud (star@sky.net) wrote:
[snip]
: Apple Remote Desktop -- commercial software from Apple. SSH, built into
: every Mac. Good introduction at
: <http://itexpress.ucdavis.edu/help/tutorials/openssh.shtml>.

Oh  - you were doing soooo good util then. Tsk @ putting a period at the 
end of an enclosed url ;-)
--
Non Illegitimi Carborundum

Hans Aberg (haberg@math.su.se) wrote:
: In article <arohb2djju2g3sa99k3h0knq45l3t0i5gr@4ax.com>, Gene
: <no_spam@here.com> wrote:

: > First I will tell you that I am not a MAC user or owner so please be
: > patient :) 

: And by MAC, you probably mean "Macintosh Apple Computer", what others call
: "Mac". :-)

Naw. That'd be an AMC: "Apple Macintosh Computer" ;-)
A Mac is a Mac is a Macintosh.
--
Non Illegitimi Carborundum

In article <arohb2djju2g3sa99k3h0knq45l3t0i5gr@4ax.com>,
 Gene <no_spam@here.com> wrote:

> Hi All,
> 
> First I will tell you that I am not a MAC user or owner so please be
> patient :) 
> 
> I have a friend who runs a small business and they have two MAC
> computers in the office that are networked together and share files.
> The main MAC has approx 20,000 files that they share and update. 
> 
> One of the people will be moving away and they want to be able to
> connect over the Internet to the main MAC and share the files just
> like they do in the office today. They need to be able to have the
> master files on the main MAC in the office and allow the other person
> to easily access and update the master files so they are always up to
> date on the main MAC. They update 50 to 60 files a day in this manner
> and want a way to continue to do this when the other person moves
> away.
> 
> I have seen many different applications for the PC such as gotomyPC
> PCanywhere etc but i am not sure how to do this with a MAC to MAC via
> the Internet.
> 
> If anyone has any suggestions i would really appreciate the help.
> Again I am not sure if this is a built in feature in the MAC that they
> can turn on and use or if they would need an application to do this.
> 
> Please keep in mind that these people are not MAC gurus and they need
> something that is simple to install and use. I am not a MAC user and
> do not live close enough to offer any hands on assistance so they need
> to be able to do this on their own.
> 
> 
> thanks for your time....
> gene

If it's file sharing that they're after, it's only a matter of setting 
up the Macs such that:

A) The fileserver has a static, routable IP address, or using dynamic 
DNS on the fileserver non-static address, or if there's a router 
involved,

B) Setting up port forwarding on the router and giving the router a 
static routable IP address or using dynamic DN on its non-static address.

Then you just use <afp://<address_of_server_or_router>/ to get access to 
the shares.

In article <arohb2djju2g3sa99k3h0knq45l3t0i5gr@4ax.com>,
 Gene <no_spam@here.com> wrote:

> Hi All,
> 
> First I will tell you that I am not a MAC user or owner so please be
> patient :) 
> 
> I have a friend who runs a small business and they have two MAC
> computers in the office that are networked together and share files.
> The main MAC has approx 20,000 files that they share and update. 
> 
> One of the people will be moving away and they want to be able to
> connect over the Internet to the main MAC and share the files just
> like they do in the office today. They need to be able to have the
> master files on the main MAC in the office and allow the other person
> to easily access and update the master files so they are always up to
> date on the main MAC. They update 50 to 60 files a day in this manner
> and want a way to continue to do this when the other person moves
> away.
> 
> I have seen many different applications for the PC such as gotomyPC
> PCanywhere etc but i am not sure how to do this with a MAC to MAC via
> the Internet.
> 
> If anyone has any suggestions i would really appreciate the help.
> Again I am not sure if this is a built in feature in the MAC that they
> can turn on and use or if they would need an application to do this.
> 
> Please keep in mind that these people are not MAC gurus and they need
> something that is simple to install and use. I am not a MAC user and
> do not live close enough to offer any hands on assistance so they need
> to be able to do this on their own.
> 
> 
> thanks for your time....
> gene

Besides the options already suggested, you might want to have your 
friend do some searches over a <http://MacOSXHints.com> for things 
like VPN, "ssh appleshare", and any other secure remote sharing 
services you can think of.

                                        Bob Harris

In article <arohb2djju2g3sa99k3h0knq45l3t0i5gr@4ax.com>,
 Gene <no_spam@here.com> wrote:

> Hi All,
> 
> First I will tell you that I am not a MAC user or owner so please be
> patient :) 
> 
> I have a friend who runs a small business and they have two MAC
> computers in the office that are networked together and share files.
> The main MAC has approx 20,000 files that they share and update. 
> 
> One of the people will be moving away and they want to be able to
> connect over the Internet to the main MAC and share the files just
> like they do in the office today. They need to be able to have the
> master files on the main MAC in the office and allow the other person
> to easily access and update the master files so they are always up to
> date on the main MAC. They update 50 to 60 files a day in this manner
> and want a way to continue to do this when the other person moves
> away.
> 
> I have seen many different applications for the PC such as gotomyPC
> PCanywhere etc but i am not sure how to do this with a MAC to MAC via
> the Internet.
> 

I use a VNC server called OSXvnc; and a client called Chicken of the 
VNC. Works very nicely. Takes a bit of work to set up, but works quite 
well.

In article <arohb2djju2g3sa99k3h0knq45l3t0i5gr@4ax.com>,
 Gene <no_spam@here.com> wrote:

> Hi All,
> 
> First I will tell you that I am not a MAC user or owner so please be
> patient :) 
> 
> I have a friend who runs a small business and they have two MAC
> computers in the office that are networked together and share files.
> The main MAC has approx 20,000 files that they share and update. 
> 
> One of the people will be moving away and they want to be able to
> connect over the Internet to the main MAC and share the files just
> like they do in the office today. 


You just want file access? That's easy ... never mind what I suggested 
about VNC.

Just use the file sharing suggestions of the other posters.