Pondering a "bi-racial" office.

[The Question]

So lately, I find myself dealing with Mac people. A lot. And PC people, too. This has had me considering (when certain projects translate into money) setting up an office for myself that has room for both a PC and a Mac. Can anybody fill me in on how difficult it would be (assuming it's even possible) to get the two to play nice together and share toys like printers, internet connection, or even (dare we dream?!) sharing the same network?

 

[jack]

So lately, I find myself dealing with Mac people. A lot. And PC people, too. This has had me considering (when certain projects translate into money) setting up an office for myself that has room for both a PC and a Mac. Can anybody fill me in on how difficult it would be (assuming it's even possible) to get the two to play nice together and share toys like printers, internet connection, or even (dare we dream?!) sharing the same network?

It's nearly impossible on a LAN unless you have wireless.

 

[The Question]

Well, wireless is a given. Probably Draft N, as Macs purportedly support it now.

 

[Tyrant]

What exactly would you want to be shared between them? What are the capabilities they bring to the table, that the other might be missing?

 

[The Question]

I'd want them to share an internet connection and maybe a printer. I'd only be using, say, a Mac Mini for the Dark Side, as all I'd use it for would be receiving, editing and/or submitting Mac formatted documents to and from Mac users.

 

[Ishcabittle]

You can get it all to play nice - as far a sharing an internet connection, that's easy as pie - they're all just clients on a DHCP network, the DHCP server doesn't care who it doles out IPs to.

Printer sharing is best when done with an IP printer, just make sure the printer has drivers for both Mac and PC.

Getting them to share files is less complicated than you think, too. Get everybody on the same subnet (192.168.1.X) and enable Windows Sharing in the Sharing pane of System Preferences on the Macs. The macs will then have a volume available at \\192.168.1.X\homefoldername. Share a folder on a PC and it becomes available as smb://[email protected] in the "Connect to Server" dialog found under Finder > Go.

They'll play nice together, no problem. Ask more questions, if you got 'em, I'll help as much as I can.

 

[Ishcabittle]

It's nearly impossible on a LAN unless you have wireless.

No offense, but this is wrong. Wired, wireless, whatever. Get them all on the same switch and they're done.

 

[headvoid]

I've just hired a guy who insisted on using a Mac. Someone like Ish installed some software so that he can save his work on a shared server and it works sweet. I have another creative guy who uses a PC and they share files OK.

There has been one occasion where a pdf fucked up, but that could be more to do with Adobe.

The Mac was fuckin expensive BTW.

 

[Ishcabittle]

Someone like Ish...

SOMEONE LIKE ISH, HUH? YOU MEAN SOMEONE STUPID LIKE ISH, RIGHT? ADMIT IT AIEFNVKJAV.,MN2Q 12O38T2K4NGAM, AOPFOIAH jerk.

 

[The Question]

The Mac was fuckin expensive BTW.

You ain't kiddin', brother. Just for shits an' giggles I spec'ed a Mac Pro full balls-out and it ran up to $16,000+ (Of course, that was also packing 16Gb of RAM...)

That's why the Mac Mini, which IMO is still overpriced but should carry document handling as well as I need a Mac to.

 

[Ishcabittle]

No doubt Macs are expensive - but you get what you pay for... it's not like they are throwing shitty components into those boxes, but yeah, that's a big "ouch" from your pocket book.

The Mini? Still faster than any of my machines, the only thing I don't like is the integrated graphics controller. Oh well.

 

[The Question]

It'll be playing second fiddle to a Dell XPS 210. Gaming will be handled by an XBOX 360 away from whatever room I use for an office, so 3D rendering of any kind will be far, far from either machine. Should work out.