I am running our master network netinfo database on my TiBook and a couple of clones on other portables. Why? Well, in our company we all use portables and we don't have a Mac OS X based server.
I have been fighting with this configuration for quite a while as it is pretty unstable once you change the network location (e.g. forever bouncing apps). The problem is that no matter what network location you choose, nibindd (the process which controls your netinfo processes) will always start all the netinfo databases no matter if they are appropriate for you current network location or not.
Read the rest of the article for a workaround to this problem...
Once you have created a Location File using the method explained in said tip, add that file to your Login Items on the Login system preference pane. Next time you boot or login, the referenced network drive will be automaticly mounted.
Best of all, this method works with servers that don't allow passwords to be saved to the keychain.
Microsoft distributes a UNIX type Line Printer Daemon (lpd) with all versions of Windows 2000. The lpd daemon allows UNIX hosts to print to local printers over a network. This means that with a little work, you can print to any printer connected to a Windows machine from your Mac. According to Microsoft's Knowledge Base, this tip should also work for Windows NT and XP, though I haven't tested those configurations.
You will need your Windows installation CD handy, administrative access to the Windows machine, and should have already installed the proper drivers on your Mac for any printers accessed this way.
Read the rest of the article for the instructions...
A friend logged into his computer remotely from my desktop using "Connect to Server" in the Finder. For my convenience, I had marked "Add Password to Keychain" in the options panel. He, of course, did not see that that option was checked, because the keychain option is no longer listed in the main panel as it was in OS 9.
He and I were both surprised (and somewhat disconcerted!) to discover the next day that his password remained on my computer, and that I could log in to his computer freely!
Just a word of caution to those logging into their computers remotely--check that options panel before you connect!
[Editor's note: A great example of the system doing exactly what it was supposed to do, and yet the results were clearly not what the user wanted! Definitely double-check the options if you're using someone else's machine to get to your own!]
I use the mail application provided with MacOSX to get my emails. This is a great application. But I like to keep my emails on the POP server for a couple of weeks, in case I want to get them on another machine. And the Mail application doesn't provide a way to clean the old emails that are still on the server.
Therefore I wrote a little perl script called "nettoie_mail.pl" that does it for me. You can get it here. You can lauch that script from anywhere, but the recommended way is to copy it to /usr/local/bin (with the terminal). As this script should be lauched on a regular basis, it should be included in the /etc/crontab file or in the /etc/daily.local file. For example, my choice is crontab:
5 2,13 * * * root /usr/local/bin/nettoie_mail.pl
Hope this helps.
[Editor's note: I haven't tried this script myself, but I looked at the source and it doesn't appear there's anything malicious going on.]
This is well worth a look if you use a Cisco VPN. The client Cisco provides is a command-line tool. VPNConnect provides a nice Aqua interface to it so you don't need to bring up or even see the Terminal. Not complete yet, but already very nice.
[Editor's note: I don't have a Cisco VPN to test this on, and I can't seem to locate the 'real' web page, so the above VersionTracker link will have to do. The comments there seem to indicate that this is a nicely functional program.]
If you're having problems with your network initializing upon startup, this tip might help. This stemmed from my system not initializing my Ethernet on boot and hence not having AppleTalk working. I couldn't print to my Personal Laser Writer 320, so I was fairly motivated to solve this one.
As a test to see if this fix will work for you, log in as root, cd to /System/Library/ and delete or move the "Extensions.mkext" file. Reboot. If your system takes about 6-8 minutes to reboot, and the NetInfo application in /Utilities/ which had never worked before will now come up and give you network information, this fix might work for you.
Read the rest of the article for the steps to take to implement this fix...
If you're fed up with typing username, password and which volume to mount every time you connect to your server, here's an easier way: Using location files.
In earlier versions of Mac OS, it was much easier to create these files, by simply dragging a URL to the desktop from any text editor. In Mac OS X, the only way I've found to do this is with a little help from Internet Explorer.
In the location field in Explorer, type:
afp://username:password@server.domain.com/volume
Select the text you just typed and drag it to the desktop. You now get a location file with the suffix .afploc. You can also use the IP address instead of domain name. If you want to use the location files in Mac OS 9, you cannot specify the volume to mount as far as I know (correct me if I'm wrong, anyone).
Put your location files in a folder, and put the folder in the dock for easy access.
Normally, when you mount a remote drive over AFP, you are presented with a list of available share points to mount. If you know which one you want, you can save yourself some time by adding it to the URL you give to the "connect to server" panel.
For example: If you want to mount the share point "foobar" from a server at 192.168.168.5, use this
afp://192.168.168.5/foobar
If there are spaces in the name of the mount point, you may need to encode them using %20.
