3 Mac network with network drive

Well, Santa is bringing a new iMac to the hacienda. That will make 3 Macs in the house -- an older intel iMac (the white ones), the new one, and a G4 iBook. I've got a newer Airport Extreme base (the simultaneous dual band version).

My plan is to put a 1Tb USB drive on the AE and use it to host iTunes, iPhoto, and documents/data for all the machines so no matter which one a family member is on, they'll have the same iTunes/iPhoto/iMovie and documents available.

I currently have all users sharing iTunes and iPhoto on the outboard drive connected to the "older" iMac, so I understand how to share those libraries among users on a single machine.

I assume the basic structure will be the same with a network drive, I'll just have to make sure the network drive is in every users "login items" so it "maps" when each user logs in. Am I missing anything fundamental?

Also, can I password document folders on the network drive so that the kids can't get into mom & dad's data folder (we use MS Office)?

Nope - spot on!

The best way to protect specific folders is to ensure permissions are not set at the 'parent' level of the drive but at the 'child' level - i.e. don't create access permissions for the entire hard drive, but all the individual folders instead - you can then restrict access based on logon credentials for all macs (assuming each family member has a unique username of course).

Ah -- excellent point on the permissions. Every user has a unique login, so changing permissions at the folder level is the ticket.

Thanks!