[X Newbies] upgrading

[Florin Alexander Neumann]

On Friday, Aug 29, 2003, at 13:16 Canada/Eastern, The Macintosh Lady 
wrote:

> If you have Ethernet on both machines which I suspect you would, (the 
> large
> hole that looks like a phone jack receptacle) you can just get a 
> crossover
> cable and File Share between the two.
>
> Or, put them both on the internet on cable with a regular cat5 plugged 
> to a
> plain hub and file share over that network.

Let's not confuse a newbie. Whatever machines he has, there's no need 
to involve the internet in this. The two Macs can be networked together 
with Ethernet, creating a LAN (local area network). The simplest way is 
to do so with a single Ethernet cable (cat 5 or cat 5e). If the other 
Mac is an older one, then the cable must be a crossover cable; if it's 
a newer one, it doesn't (newer machines detect the connection type 
automatically). It's cheap and easy, but it's limiting. Nothing else 
can be added to this network. If you want to network other machines, 
use a network printer, or share a broadband connection, you need to add 
a hub or a router. Instead of being connected directly to each other, 
each Mac will be connected to the hub (or router). This kind of network 
arrangement is called a star topology. (If you have a broadband 
connection to the internet, the router will function as the gateway 
between your LAN and the internet.) In either case, the cables are cat 
5 or 5e; the difference between a regular and a crossover cable 
consists in how the connectors are wired.

Other options may be available, but it'd be idle to discuss them 
without details on John's setup.

f