>The students are not given access to the whole network (ie the lab 
>machines donot have a chooser or network browser). This is a 
>decision taken by the computer services unit (which is anti-mac). I 
>would have thought that this could be solved by using the "Users" 
>feature of OS9, but the CS wants the mac logon and the PC logon to 
>look the same (hence the mac interface is quite crippled).
>
>Anyone see an easy - or even possible solution given the parameters 
>I have to work within?

Dave:

Yeah, shoot CS -- besides their actions prove they're an oxymoron 
anyway. Taking away the Mac's ability to network and then requiring 
Mac's to network in some other fashion is ignorant. Let then try 
doing that with a windoze machine. Besides, does the CS think that 
everything for the students is going to "look the same" after the 
students leave college?

In any event, while I haven't done it, Staz wrote/offered a AppleTalk 
Filter for FB/PG and it monitors a LAN allows different Mac's to 
communicate in several ways. The functions contained therein may be 
able to help you do what you want -- but I think it's going to be a 
big job to set up folders on one Mac and have them selectively 
appearing on different Mac's -- that's what AppleShare is all about.

It would be much easier to:

1. Create a unique folder on the server (or on any of the Mac's 
connected to the network for that matter) for each student (i.e., 
tedd's folder).

2. Turn files sharing on for each folder and give each a unique password.

3. Then when each student uses any of the Mac's, all they have to do 
is to select chooser, select AppleShare, find their folder, and log 
on.

4. If the operation is done correctly, then their folder (and only 
their folder) will appear on their desktop.

You know, Apple spent a lot of time writing that. Is your CS team not 
capable of understanding?

Funny, while I was writing the above, it occurred to me that you 
might be able to accomplish what you want with AppleScript. While i 
haven't done any intelligent AppleScripting, isn't AppleScript 
designed to take-over/replace users actions -- to reduce several 
actions down to one? If so, then design an AppleScript to do the 
above with a form that mimics the windoze requirements. I would 
attempt doing that before writing any code. You might also post your 
request to an AppleScript forum.

HTH.

tedd
-- 
http://sperling.com/