[wsmith67]

Hey folks,
Here is what I want to do. Any help in trouble shooting it will be greatly appreciated.

I have an intel 17" iMac and a dell inspiron 6000. I want to hook my imac directly to my cable modem and allow network sharing. I want the xp latpop to connect wirelessly to the iMac to use the internet. I want the imac to act as the WAP for the xp laptop so both iMac and dell can be online at the same time; but I want to limit the network usage to just the xp laptop. Does the mac have a feature in it to allow network sharing by MAC address or something along those lines?


I think just allowing network sharing in the mac would work...I haven't tried anything yet, but I keep hearing that the mac's firewall might cause a problem (need to bypass port 80)

I also thought about buying an airpot express so that way I could do wireless printing. But would the xp laptop be able to utilize that feature with airport?

I am a pc tech but am kind of new with using OS...maybe a year or so....so any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

[ghporter]

The OS X Internet Connection Sharing utility works very similarly to the one you have in XP, except that it seems to be easier to use and set up.

I personally resist using ICS for anything. In my experience it's a pain to keep running, it requires one computer to be on for its own AND the sharing computer's Internet connection, and it typically involves some sort of unpleasant configuration compromise. That compromise, in this case, is the potential for problems with the OS X firewall. For all these reasons, I always recommend an inexpensive router instead of anything but a dedicated Linux box running a really good router/firewall package.

Now as far as the firewall goes, you MAY be able to just go with its normal settings; surfing on the XP machine connected through the iMac should be fine. Other protocols may give you problems, though-I don't know how POP mail protocols go through the OS X firewall, for example.

You should also be able to share a printer through the iMac and AirPort Express from the XP laptop. But if you're going to get an AirPort Express, why use ICS? The AirPort Express IS a router, after all. Just plug the Express into the cable modem, plug the cable from the iMac into the LAN port and configure the wireless so your XP laptop can see it and you're golden.

The only real wireless printing (or network printing in general) problem you're likely to run into is that some USB-only printers just don't play nice on networks, and NO all-in-one does much more than print on a network.