buh bye PC

got the ibook and imac. Have set up the iBook and things are REALLY easy (except for the dreaded Outlook to Entourage migration -- I'm using a .Mac account to transfer, but we're talking north of 6,000 emails).

A couple questions:

1) I've installed Office (teacher edition) but the iBook will default to iWorks when I click on a *.doc file. How do I get it to use Word? In the "old" days (windows) you'd just associate all *.doc files with Word. Can't figure it out here.

2) How can I set up my Documents folder so that another user on this machine (my wife) can read/write what's in there? I dont' want to make 2 duplicate folders in each of our user homes.

thanks.

PS--since PCs came about, I had always recommended to people in the market that if money wasn't the key criterion but simplicity was, they should buy Apple, otherwise buy a PC. This is my first Apple, and I'm happy I was actually giving good advice all these years.

1) Click on the file once and Go to File > Get Info or Apple + I and there's an option "Open with...". Select Word and select "Change All", that should make .doc open up in Word instead of Pages.

No idea about the second question, sorry. I'm a lone user on my iMac so no idea when it comes to sharing between accounts. Hopefully someone else will be able to help you.

BTW, what iMac did you get? The new Intel or G5?

Tiranis, thanks. I got the Intel iMac -- haven't set that one up yet as it goes in the den and there are guys in their now re-tiling the floor (lots of fun at my house right now).

the G4 iBook is really fast -- I upgraded RAM to 1M so that helps. But generally it is a very quick computer. Great screen (got the 14").

Hopefully there'll be an answer to sharing question.

You could create a shared folder and then alias both users Documents folder to that. I think that should work. (Is the "Shared" folder under Users normal or did I add that?)

Personally I would create a alias to the shared folder under Documents rather than replacing it but either should be fine.

EDIT: Well that is awful. An Alias as created by finder does not act as a symbolic link. I would use create a symbolic link in terminal. Much better option than an alias.

Kokpelli as you have realised with your edit, aliases in the Finder bear no relation to symbolic links.

You can use the Shared folder as noted and also the Drop Box folder within that.

If you want to make your Documents folder accessible to another user, it's not too difficult.

Assume we have two users: Mike and Amy.

1.) You are logged in as Mike. Amy wants to access your documents folder when she is logged in so she can read and write.

2.) Mike's documents folder is in: Macintosh HD->Users->Mike->Documents

3.) Right click on the Documents folder and the Get Info menu item. Down the bottom of the Documents Info window that pops up is a section called 'Ownership and permissions'

4.) Click the arrow next to Ownership and Permissions, it will flop down the access rights.

5.) Click the little padlock beside the Owner combination box.

6.) From the Others: combination box select Read and Write and then click Apply to enclosed items

7.) Close the window. You may need to enter your password.

8.) Whilst holding down Command (Apple) and Option (Alt) drag the Documents folder over to Macintosh HD in the left of the finder window (the sidebar), keep holding and Macintosh HD will open, then drag over the Users folder, it will spring open (keep holding the mouse and those keys!) and then over the folder Amy. Release the mouse and keys.

9.) An alias to your documents folder is made in Amy's user account area to Mike's documents. An alias is denoted by the arrow by the corner of the icon. Now Amy can log in, go to her user account area and double click Mike's Documents folder alias and be able to read and write to it with full permission.

Note this is not the most secure way to do this and really you need to create a Group and include Mike and Amy in it. This is done through NetInfo manager in Macintosh HD/Applications/Utilities.

If this does not make sense, please ask and I shall explain :flower:

Vicky

Vicki: thanks. I actually tried to use Groups. Following your directions, I selected "Allison" from the Groups combo pull-down and gave read/write permission to my Documents folder. Try the drag and drop you explained, but nothing shows up in Allisons desktop, home or document folder. What did I do wrong?

You could <ctrl> click on your Documents folder and select "make alias" then drag the alias over if you prefer.

You can create the alias the way Kokopelli suggested but it seems odd that you cannot see the created alias in the other user's home folder.

Let's look a bit closer at this.


The structure of the Mac's hard disk is: (Using Mike and Amy again)

Macintosh HD-->Users+-->Mike
+-->Amy
+-->Shared

In Mike and Amy's home folder is Desktop, Documents, Music, Movies, Pictures, Shared and a few more folders.

Items placed in the user's desktop folder will appear on their Finder Desktop.

So if you were to drag an icon, alias or not from Mike's account into Amy's home folder and then her Desktop folder, Amy should be able to log in and see that icon taken from Mike's account on her Finder desktop.

Try using the 'Make Alias' command as Kokopelli suggested from the pop up menu and then drag it to Allison's account.

Command + Option simply is the keyboard shortcut for creating aliases when dragging.
--
The second issue is using the Groups combination list. This will work, but only through luck in a sense that Apple has set up the way it manages users and groups on Mac OS X. (The client that pretty much all of us use). This is not to say we can't group users into defined groups of our own using plain vanilla Mac OS X, it just requires a little work on the technical side.

If by some strange coincidence you are using Mac OS X Server; you need to start using the Mac OS X Workgroup Manager... But I very much doubt you have this!!

In an ideal world you could create a group where you and Allison exist where you have your own 'ownership' permissions to change, delete etc. your files as you please, and Allison has decent read/write access to selected resources (or files) on your account, but is restricted in what she can access still—or shall we say restricted in what she can annihilate!

You could call this group 'Me and Allison' or whatever you like.

This method is preferable as it is more secure, allows more customisation as to that group's access rights too.

The downside is that it's not as easy as a click on a mouse though it isn't too much more difficult if you follow instructions well :flower: If you would like me to guide you in this, let me know.
--

First things first though—let me know how creating an alias and it appearing in Allison's account goes first and we'll take it from there. Baby steps!

You can do it, it's not OS X's fault and I will agree with you whole heartedly it's not as simple as Windows XP.

But—the reason it's not as simple is because we are dealing with a very powerful and much more secure beast at the end of the day.

Vicky

Great, thanks Vicki. Believe me, I have no love lost for Xp, it's just that XP is my frame of reference at this point -- I've been using Win since 3.1 (and Dosshell and MS Dos before that).

BTW -- completely different question: will Apple's video player handle WMV videos? All the home video is on the old PC in WMV format. Do I need to convert before moving it to the Mac?

www.flip4mac.com

It will play the files in QuickTime once you install the Codecs. It will not play DRM'ed WMV files nor WMV10 files.

Vicky