"Connecting" Mac Air to iMac MC309

Our son bought us an Apple Mac MC309 desktop for Christmas and I would like to be able to "communicate" with it from my Mac Air and vice versa for sharing photos and files. How can I do this please?

My current Mac Air operating system is OS X 10.6.8

I believe I need to run iCloud? (my wife uses this on her iPhone 4S to communicate with the PC) but I don't think this will run on my current operating system and that I need to "upgrade" my OS to OS X Lion for around £20 and then further upgrade to OS x Snow Leopard for another £20. Is this right please?

Welcome to the forum.

iCloud is one solution, you don't "need" to use iCloud to share files.

But assuming you're on the same home network you can share photos and files over the network (shared folders etc). I can give you further details if required.

However, your MacBook Air is already running Snow Leopard. Your iMac will either have Snow Leopard or Lion (depending on where and when it was purchased).
Either way you can buy Lion for £20 on the app store and install it on both your Macs if you want to go down the iCloud route.

mrplow said:

Welcome to the forum.

iCloud is one solution, you don't "need" to use iCloud to share files.

But assuming you're on the same home network you can share photos and files over the network (shared folders etc). I can give you further details if required.

However, your MacBook Air is already running Snow Leopard. Your iMac will either have Snow Leopard or Lion (depending on where and when it was purchased).
Either way you can buy Lion for £20 on the app store and install it on both your Macs if you want to go down the iCloud route.

Click to expand...

Many thanks mrplow. I will certainly try another method if I save £20! I believe it's to do with "File Sharing"?

System Preferences - Sharing
Tick File Sharing

In the Shared Folders panel tou can click the + to add folders you want to share across the network - you'll see the public folders in the already.

Do the same on both Macs. You'll see the shared folders under 'Shared' in Finder.

If you have photos you want to share in iPhoto you can enable sharing in the Preferences panel under sharing in iPhoto.
If you just keep photos in a folder you can just share it out as above.

There are lots of ways to share al sorts of content. If you have a specific scenario not covered here post back.

Many thanks mrplow. I'll give it a go today when I get time You've been most helpful!

I presume with this "sharing" option, to get pictures from the iMac I would first have to go to the computer and load the pictures into the "shared" folder then go back to the Air and open that folder? That being the case I'd be not better off than I am now.

Ideally I want to access the files/photos that are stored on the iMac (upstairs) from the Air (downstairs) and vice versa so presumably I can only do this with iCloud?

I've had a go at this "sharing" but not getting very far! I've set up the sharing option on both computers and on both I can get to a "drop box" but when I try to access this I get the message "The folder “Drop Box” can’t be opened because you don’t have permission to see its contents"?
Not sure where to go from here?

In the sharing preferemces screen next to this dropbox folder you've created have you set read write permissions for "everyone" - have a look at the public folder for what it should look like.

Ideally I want to access the files/photos that are stored on the iMac (upstairs) from the Air (downstairs) and vice versa so presumably I can only do this with iCloud?

Click to expand...

Again, no need to use iCloud, network sharing will give you all of this.

I presume with this "sharing" option, to get pictures from the iMac I would first have to go to the computer and load the pictures into the "shared" folder then go back to the Air and open that folder? That being the case I'd be not better off than I am now.

Click to expand...

You can do this but as per my post above you can share out photos in iPhoto straight from the iPhoto preferences.

There's also no need to create a specific folder to share (you can, but you don't have to).
e.g. if you want to shares the documents folder just go to the System Preferences - Sharing and add the documentss folder to the list of shared folders.

Many thanks again mrplow, works a treat! Just had to make sure "everyone" was given access and all OK!
Where would we be without these forums

Cheers!

Good stuff, glad it's working and thanks for posting back.
Don't forget to tip your waitress