Good grief, this is useful. Connect two Macs with firewire!

Category: Mac, Category: FileMaker Pro

Originally posted on my iBlog 26 July 2004.

Summary: Connecting two Macs directly with a standard firewire cable (OSX). Nothing new here, just a summary of Mac help and a Macworld tip.

The steps summarised from Mac Help

1. shut down the computer to be connected; the main computer can be left on


2. connect the two computers with a standard firewire cable


3. start-up the computer to be shared, holding down the T-key until the Firewire symbol appears


4. a disk icon for the shared computer will pop up on the desktop of the main computer


5. do what you need to do (blisteringly quickly)


6. when finished, eject the shared computer disk icon


7. Push the power button to shut it down


8. Disconnect cable

Some more details from Macworld Weekly [11.25.02 -- 12.02.02]

Tip: FireWire Target Disk Mode
One of the most oft-neglected (and most useful) features found in modern-day Macs is FireWire Target Disk Mode -- a technique for mounting another Mac's hard drive via a FireWire connection. To employ FireWire Target Disk Mode first string a 6-pin-to-6-pin FireWire cable between two compatible Macs (the Blue & White Power Mac G3 and Power Mac G4 [PCI] are not compatible). The "target" Mac (the Mac that contains the hard drive you want to access from the host computer) must be switched off.

Switch on the target Mac and hold down the T key on its keyboard. In short order a FireWire symbol will appear on its screen and the target drive will mount on the host Mac's Desktop as a local hard drive. Once mounted you can copy files between the two Macs or troubleshoot the target drive from the host computer.

A few notes: For target disk mode to work the target drive must be an ATA hard drive set at ATA bus 0 and an Open Firmware password on the target drive must not be enabled. Also, to establish contact between certain Macs via Target Disk Mode, you may need to unplug and replug the FireWire cable when both Macs are running.

Using WebDAV on a Mac from Lincoln University

Category: Mac, Category: MS Windows

Originally posted on my iBlog 15 July 2004.

Summary: I'm one of a small minority of Macs inside a Windows network without Mac IT support. This has raised problems, although only a few of them have not been easily surmountable. This is one. I cannot use my Mac to open an intranet WebDAV folder to update my course website. Or, rather, I can connect to them and copy into them but cannot see their contents. It seems to be a propriety issue with Microsoft's IIS server. (Thankfully Lincoln has since decided to move to Moodle for its course webpages which sidesteps the whole problem.)

Body: From: Jon Sullivan
Date: Tue Jun 15, 2004 2:07:17 PM Pacific/Auckland
Subject: Re: staff question about ECOL103

Hi,

Well, I got it working in XP without trouble.

I tried on the Mac with the proxy server off, as you suggested. It opens a connection, but shows a folder with nothing inside. I tried loading up a test folder into this space, which it did. But when I disconnected and reconnected, it was no longer displayed. Oddly, this test file shows up when I connected with XP, so it is uploading successfully.

So I AM connecting. But I am not able to view the contents of the folder.

I had a quick snoop on the web, and the problem is with Lincoln's Microsoft IIS server not playing nicely with the non-Microsoft world (there's a surprise). The following are a few extracts from the Goliath help listserv archive (http://mailman.webdav.org/pipermail/goliath/ ).


"I am attempting to connect to a Microsoft IIS server with Frontpage
extensions. FTP access is turned off.
Goliath seems to successfully connect but no files appear in the
connection window. Anyone know what is going on?

Using WebFolders on Windows 9x allows access.

Does anyone know of another way around this?

OT"

"The question regarding uploading to an IIS server reflects the same
issue I have been having uploading to IIS v5.5 with Frontpage
extensions. It seems Microsoft is being very proprietary here and - I
have been told - only supports WebDAV if the OS and app follows their
Object Linking and Embedding (OLE) protocol. I do not have enough
technical knowledge to figure out whether that completely leaves Mac
access out in the cold or whether some work around is possible."

"I'm currently evaluating the level of effort required to support the
Microsoft IIS server - this is the last feature that I am considering for
this release."

So, it looks like I'm screwed by Microsoft again. I'll use XP on Virtual PC in the interim.

Thanks.

Jon