file sharing

I'm having a problem getting file sharing to work on my home network.

I have file sharing turned on, and my firewall set to allow only essential connections but when I try to hook up with my macbook to my iMac to watch movies, it doesn't connect. It will only connect if i set the firewall on my iMac to allow all incoming connections.

When I log into my iMac from my MacBook to retrieve say a movie, I need to enter my user name and password for that my iMac. Anyway to change that?

I'm running 10.5.2 on both machines.

Thanks or your help.
Cpt. Morgan

You always have to authenticate to shares,.....

It's called security.

You could connect to the Mac and select the "remember in my keychain" box and the keychain will supply the credentials for you automatically. This may be more of what you're thinking.

Common practice is the create an alias of the network drive and put it some where out of the way and then drop it in your dock. When you want to reconnect just click on the alias and you will reconnect as long as the keychain option was checked and the Mac is on.