newbie question - can guest and host switch?

[tadibber]

I am new to Networking and to Macs. I have FM5 on a win XP machine, and a brand new Mac OS X with FM6 on that one. I have networked them together successfully, but can't figure out from the book if you can switch which computer is the host and which is the guest, depending on which setup is more convenient on any given day. The help says the one you open first is the host. So do the files automatically get stored on that machine that opened FM first? Is the only problem with this remembering which computer is holding the changed files?

[kenneth2k1]

Yeah. Say you use the Mac as the host. You connect to it with the XP machine. Basically the file is sort of "lent" by the mac, and scripts and stuff will run on the XP machine. The Mac is updated with the changes that you make on the XP machine. Now, since the Mac has all the updated info, why would you want to turn around and make the XP machine the host? You would have to physically copy the file to Xp from the Mac. Seems kinda counter-productive if you can just connect to the Mac.

[Steve T.]

Hi, tadibber! I would tend to agree w/kenneth21 and recommend you just pick one to be host. I have not tested it on Windows, but I believe it does not matter where the file is stored... even if you are accessing the file on a mounted network volume, whoever opens it first is the host (but I hear it is a bad idea to open it through a mounted volume like that even though it'll work).

We used to have a primary user who used a db locally and other folks needed to access it only once in a while. Although it kinda worked ok, we much prefer the system we're using now in which our db's are all hosted on 1 computer and everyone connects using the HOSTS button. We are using a modest 300 MHz G3 for this and it's great, so you don't need to run out and buy a new server or anything. I saw a similar 300 MHz G3 online for about $150 if you don't have a used computer lying around to do the job.

--ST

[tadibber]

Thanks - I guess that makes sense. Another question: can you make a script that runs on one machine and not the other? I do image editing as well on the Mac with a huge screen, so I set a script upon opening to zoom to 150% to be able to read the tiny letters, but it opens on the XP as well, which has a small screen.

[Steve T.]

Howdy, howdy! Hmm... I tend to avoid scripts since I mostly do web-based stuff, but my guess is that you can probably put some kind of IF statement in the script to only execute for user A or from IP address xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx or something. Can anyone help tadibber out on this?

--ST

[kenneth2k1]

Hi:

I've never tried it with a network solution, but you could make a startup script that checks Status(CurrentScreenWidth) and zooms accordingly.

Since scripts are executed on the local machine, it should work.

[tadibber]

Thanks. I haven't figured out how to do that, but will keep poking around.

[kenneth2k1]

Basically just make a script that goes:

If[status(CurrentScreenWidth) = 1024]

Set Zoom Level[Zoom In]

Else

..whatever

Or something like that. I don't know how your layouts are set up, so play with it.

Then set this script to run at startup. Or add these steps to your startup scipt.