After fighting with Rendezvous for the last month and getting a ton of Error -50's and Error -36's, I finally figured out how to properly configure the Mac to use Samba to work with a dialup connection.

[Editor's note: I haven't tested this one myself, as I have no dialup to test with...]

I use an iMac with very limited room on the hard drive. What I have ended up doing is building a Samba server out of one of my old linux machines for additional storage. What I was doing until I found the following trick was to download files to my hard drive and then move the files over to the server, as I was unable to choose the Samba share in the "where to download" choices.

What I did was make an alias to my Samba share and put it on my desktop. When I want to download to the Samba share, I can choose to download to the alias I created on my desktop and it will logon to the Samba server and download directly to the Samba share. Maybe with future upgrades this won't be necessary, but until then, this is the only way I have found to download directly to the Samba share.

[Editor's note: I can't verify this one myself, as at the moment, I can't seem to get Windows2000 to recognize my password from my Mac, so no Samba share to connect to!]

I was reading about some of the problems with 10.2.2 and the 'security' of having all copied files set to read only permissions for files copied over to another machine. I found a bit about setting permissions on a directory so that they would hold its parents permissions when copied into the directory.

I created a folder called 'shares' and created folders within that for each of the designers on my team to dump files that we need to go back and forth with. In SharePoints, I made the 'shares' a sharepoint, and then added a group with all of the designers. I set the permissions for the folders to myself as the owner and the group is the one created above. This allowed me to delete files within the subdirectories when I didn't need them any longer.

Then in the terminal, I cd'd over to the directory and did a "ls -l" and got:

 drwxrwx--x

as the listing for the folder ... all seemed well. I then ran:

 % chown g+s 'dirname'

At least all of the files that are dragged into it take on the permissions from the directory above, but folders that are created inside by a shared user don't. Any files that are put in by the shared user into a folder they create I need to run thru batchmod and reset, then I can delete it. But files that are dragged into the main directory can be deleted no problem.

I am sure there is lots more that can be worked with this, I have just been trying to find a way to be able to share files a lot easier. We don't use the 'public' folders since they are on the boot drives and we set the systems up for better access with all of the graphic and video files that we use.

[Editor's note: I have not tested this myself...]

Just got through a half-day of getting my Powerbook running 10.2.2 to print to my Samsung ML-1210 laser printer through a Linksys WPS11 Wireless Print Server. Hopefully my fun experience will be helpful to:

• People trying to use the Linksys WPS11 Wireless Print Server with Jaguar, since Linksys doesn't offer technical support for Macs.
  
• People trying to use a Samsung Laser Printer in a non-usb fashion.

The following works for a setup like mine -- Samsung ML-1210 + a Linksys WPS11 v3 Wireless PrintServer. I assume you have a working wireless basestation and a working DHCP server in your LAN.

I found some info on the Intel web site under the Windows 2000 / NT LPR configuration, but it worked for two iMacs at my wife's school.

Add a new IP Printer and type in the IP address of the Netport but make sure you remove the checkbox from the "Use default queue on server" and type in one of the following:

LPT1_PASSTHRU
LPT2_PASSTHRU
COM1_PASSTHRU

Your choice, of course, depends on the port that your printer is attached to. I "believe" this would also work on a single port Netport but I can't confirm that.

Under Jaguar, I sometimes get a problem with Airport where the connection drops, and any attempt to use the Airport toolbar menu results in a finder lockup (spinning rainbow disk). I've discovered that unloading and reloading the Airport driver kernel extension fixes the problem. Here's the script I've written to do that (it needs to be run as an admin user):

 #!/bin/sh
 sudo kextunload -b com.apple.driver.AppleAirPort
 sudo kextload /System/Library/Extensions/AppleAirPort.kext

This fixes the Finder lockup and allows me to rejoin the wireless network. The only catch is that thereafter the toolbar menu is nonfunctional, and I need to toggle it off and then on again in Internet Connect to get it to work (any advice on how to do this programatically would be appreciated).

I have finally succeeded in getting my Windows 2000 PC to print to my HP Deskjet 970 which is attached to my iMac. I know this works for USB inkjets. Your mileage may vary with other types of printers. Essentially, you don't use Samba at all, just CUPS.

Read the rest of the article for the how-to...

After having connected and logged in to another machine on your network, drag its disk icon into your ~/Library -> Favorites folder. Next time you want to connect, it will be right there as a Go -> Favorites menu item, or in the Favorites folder from any finder window. If you find yourself regularly accessing a particular folder on the server, drag that folder icon from the host to your Favorites instead of the disk icon -- saves you from having to drill down each time you connect.

[Editor's note: The Favorites folder can be a big time saver in many areas; accessing to networked volumes is one of them. For an even more powerful version of Favorites, check out Default Folder X, which provides a custom list of favorites on an application specific basis.]

I have been unable to find any help on the 'net on how to share my Brother MFC 3100C from my Mac OS X 10.2 machine to a windows '98 machine; however, there were other helpful hints (far too many to list) that allowed me to find the following solution. I'm submitting it here in case it can be of use to other people. My email address is tb-mac_hints@nixnerd.net. I suggested to Brother that they publish this as well in their own FAQs. I hope it is easy to understand and helpful. :)

The following instructions enable you to share your Brother MFC 3100C from your mac running Mac OS X 10.2 (Jaguar) to a windows network. This involves 4 steps:

• Installing the printer on your mac
  
• Adding a second definition of your printer for windows sharing
  
• Enabling printer sharing in samba
  
• Installing the printer as a "Network Printer" on your windows machine

Read the rest of the article for the how-to...

If you need to make virtual private network connections (VPN) to allow outside users to use your internal, firewalled network and are IP address poor (ie. you can't assign addresses to the VPN clients as all of your subnet is filled) and you have MacOS X Server, you can use the built in VPN server in Mac OS X. Note, the server needs to be outside the firewall or have the firewall configured to allow PPTP connections through. Explaining how to set up your firewall is outside the scope of this hint.

For this tip you need to be comfortable in the UNIX shell.

[Editor's note: I have not tested this hint, and note that it requires OS X Server.]