[Buffamac]

Hi, I volunteer for a local non-profit organization and they have a few Macs they want to setup a local area network with. Since I'm more of a PC guy (and not very knowledgable with computer networking), I thought I'd go to the experts and see what you guys recommend in terms of a LAN setup for Macs. Basically all they want is to be able to connect the various computers together over LAN so they can share a server-side hard drive. Now, they don't even have a cable modem. Just a telephone modem. So they generally just connect to the internet for short periods of time, but they want the actual LAN to be constantly active so data can be transferred back and forth freely.

What would best suit our needs? A router? Probably, right? Of course it would be lovely to have some built-in firewall protection, as a router could provide, but if there are LAN alternatives that are less expensive, please provide me some information on that. Any help for this MAC newb would be greatly appreciated.

Somebody on another forum mentioned the always-reliable SMC Barricade 7004ABR router. (http://www.compusa.com/products/prod...amp;pfp=SEARCH)
Anybody else concur with this choice for our Mac setup? Any other suggestions?

[Paul Derby]

Pretty much any router should work. I'd look for one that has a WEB interface to do the configuring so they aren't faced with using a Windows only configuration application. Netgear makes some inexpensive and easy to configure switch/router/dhcp boxes with web based configuration. There are plenty of other vendors, too.