Wireless Home Networking - Index of

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Part IV: Using a Wireless Network
One cool feature that Apple has added to its
latest versions of Mac OS — Mac OS versions
10.2 and beyond — is a networking system
named Bonjour. Bonjour, previously known as
Rendezvous, is based on an open Internet standard
(IETF, or Internet Engineering Task Force,
Zeroconf) and is being adopted by a number of
manufacturers outside of Apple.
Basically, Bonjour (and Zeroconf) is a lot like
Bluetooth (which we discuss in Chapter 15) in that
it allows devices on a network to discover each
other without any user intervention or special
configuration. Bonjour is slowly being incorporated
into many products, such as printers, storage
devices (basically, networkable hard drives),
and even household electronics such as TiVo.
That’s it! Your Mac automatically turns on Windows sharing and opens the
appropriate holes (ports) in your firewall. If you haven’t already enabled
accounts on your Mac for sharing, you’re prompted by OS X to do so now.
Simply click the Enable Accounts button, and in the dialog box that opens,
select the accounts (or users) of your Mac that you want to allow access to.
To do this, just select the check box next to each name you want to enable,
and then click Done. That’s all there is to it. If you want to connect to your
LAN from a Windows computer, simply browse your Neighborhood Network
in Windows XP or Vista or enter your network’s address on an Explorer
address bar. It’s something like the following:
\192.168.1.3\username
Bonjour, Madam!
Here’s one great feature about Bonjour: On Macs
equipped with Apple AirPort network adapter
cards, it lets two (or more) Macs in range of each
other — in other words, within Wi-Fi range —
automatically connect to each other for file sharing,
instant messaging, and other tasks without
going through any extra steps of setting up a
peer-to-peer network.
Bonjour is enabled automatically in Mac OS version
10.2/3/4/5 computers if you enable Personal
File Sharing (found in System Preferences; look
for the Sharing icon) or use Apple’s iChat Instant
Messaging program, Apple’s Safari Web
browsers, or any Bonjour-capable printer connected
to your AirPort network.
(Substitute your Mac OS X username for username, of course!)