On 31/05/2006, at 1:04 AM, Gregory Anderson wrote: > On May 30, 2006, at 2:26 AM, Nick Batzdorf wrote: > >> Okay. In my set-up, I have MIDI-Over-LAN (musiclab.com) going from >> one G5/Logic machine to a slave G5 and three Windows slaves. Since >> moving to a 30" Cinema display, I've also been controlling the slaves >> over the network (Remote Desktop) recently - my physical KVM switcher >> has been sitting on the floor unused. > > I just bought a 4-port KVM, but am willing to use it to prop open > doors > if I can control everything through Remote Desktop. How hard was that > to implement? > >> To make that work, each slave machine has to have a fixed IP address; >> if you just use DHCP, the IP addresses are liable to change every >> time you turn a machine on and off, and you will go fricking nuts >> trying to get everything to connect. I also have a color laser >> printer and another network printer (an all-in-one); they too need >> fixed addresses, especially the laser printer, since I turn it off >> when I'm not using it (the noise is unbearable). Plus my daughter's >> Mac is on the network so she can share a third printer. (There's >> rhyme and reason to why I have all these printers - I'm only slightly >> bonkers. :) ) >> >> That means you have to go in and assign each machine on the network >> an IP address manually. Same with the printers - you have to dig >> through the cryptic menus and assign them numbers. > > That hard, huh? That sucks. > >> This isn't a huge deal once you understand what's going on, but I >> only learned how to do this recently. Without wanting to sound >> overly arrogant, I've been working on Macs literally all day long for >> the past 20 years and making my living writing about music and >> recording technology for about 15 of those years. If I only just >> figured this out, I have a massive enough ego to believe that it's >> more complicated than it needs to be. :) > > Nick, my ego couldn't possibly be as massive as yours :-), but I agree > with you for the same reasons. I'm sure there are many geniuses out > there who have great cross-platform networks at home (you and Paul > being 2 of them), but I am a sophisticated enough Mac user that this > task, which seems almost undoable at this point, should have been as > easy as a few mouse clicks. Like I said of Event after they released > their excellent but complex EZBus - saying that something is easy does > not make it so. > > I bought a gigabit switch and can finally bring up my laptop HD on my > iMac DC, but not the other way around, and my PC doesn't even seem to > know that it's on the network. Normally for me, this would all be OT > and low priority, but I'm reasonably certain that some of my favorite > plugs (namely Sonic Maximizer and Plugsound V.2) will not be making > the > switch to the MacIntels, and am desperately seeking a way to use my G4 > running those plugs in concert with my iMacDC running everything else. > Nodes obviously don't help, but MoL might be a solution, among other > future products, but any solution is going to require a fast reliable > network that doesn't require tweaking every time I try to make music. > I'm not there yet. Why not stick to the KVM, avoid Remote Desktop. Install AU Lab from the Developer tools on your OSX disks and give it a go. It's a good way to loose a rainy afternoon. But seriously, saying it could be easier does not qualify it as that hard either. Fiddly perhaps. Sounds like you've got most of the bits to give it a try.... Regards ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: Paul Najar Jaminajar Music Production www.jaminajar.com ----------------------------------------------------------------- LUG Group Buy for Serato's Pitch n' Time LE until May 31st! See http://logic-users.org/groupbuy/serato for full details