[PowerPc = Pwnage]

My friend would like to transfer information from mac to mac faster than firewire without a server. He has a switch, if he simply plugged the two macs into that would it work?

Also, Does simply plugging the two macs into it and a cable modem into it enable internet for the two?

[ghporter]

Actual performance of 100BaseT ethernet is noticeably less than firewire 400, and FW400 is not as fast as it sounds due to the management overhead required for a successful connection. In other words, 10/100BaseT ethernet (also known as fast ethernet) will be a big disappointment, and a switch (I'm assuming you mean an ethernet switch) won't help at all.

Gigabit ethernet is a different matter, and you can (note that I said "can") get THROUGHPUT speeds of up to 600Mbps sustained. BUT... (you knew it was coming, didn't you?) you need GOOD ethernet patch cables and of course both computers need to have gigabit network cards. This will be noticeably faster than FW400, but not as fast as FW800.

The biggest thing a switch will do for you is eliminate the need to manually configure an ethernet connection directly between two computers. But to go faster than a direct firewire connection, you definitely need at least gigabit ethernet.