Maria’s Guides

• The allure of Twitter, the latest Web sensation.
  A great article about Twitter. By Michael Agger, Slate Magazine.
  (tags: twitter slate web)

Information from an Apple Press Release.

I was wondering when Apple was going to get some interesting new content for use with its Apple TV. The answer is, today.

From Award-Winning MGM Films Now on the iTunes Store:

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. (MGM) and Apple® today announced that MGM is now offering titles from its prestigious catalog of feature films for purchase and download on the iTunes® Store (www.itunes.com). Beginning today, iTunes customers will be able to purchase legendary films such as “Dances With Wolves,” “Mad Max,” “The Great Train Robbery” and “Rocky,” with other titles to be added in the coming weeks….

A solution for Vista network connection to Macintosh problems.

Back in December, 2005, I wrote an article titled “File Sharing: Tiger & Vista,” in which I reported my efforts in getting my Dual G5 running Tiger to talk to my Dell laptop running Vista. As that article explains, I was able to set up Vista so Mac OS could connect and access the Dell’s files. But I was unable to get Vista to connect to the Dual G5 to access the Mac’s files.

I won’t bore you with my attempts to resolve this problem. It was very frustrating. Microsoft claimed it was an Apple support issue and Apple claimed it was a Microsoft support issue. You know the drill.

In reading through my feeds today, I stumbled across a post on macoshints.com, “Fix a Vista to Mac failure to connect problem.” The author of the article, shoutdown, had found a thread on the vista64.net forum with instructions for fixing the problem: “Will not accept my password when connecting to WORKGROUP computer.”

I read the thread and followed the instructions. Not only was I able to [finally] connect to my Mac from Vista, but Vista had remembered the password I’d used on all my attempts and just connected me without prompting for a password. What’s even more amazing is that it also allowed me to [finally] set up my shared printer, an HP LaserJet 2100TN directly connected to my G5 via Ethernet, on Vista and even — can you imagine? — print a page!

The problem evidently has something to do with Vista security (what else is new?). From robg on macosxhints.com:

…it seems the problem is that Microsoft has disabled LM and NTLM authentication, which is what OS X’s version of Samba uses. Microsoft’s preferred solution is to upgrade to Samba 3, which supports NTLMv2, as does Vista.

rogb thoughtfully provides the link to the fix for folks running Vista Home versions, which don’t include Administrative Tools. (I’m running Ultimate, for reasons I’m still unclear about, so shoutdown’s link worked fine for me.)

The bottom line: If you want to connect from your Mac to a Vista machine, read my original “File Sharing: Tiger & Vista” article. If you want to connect from Vista to a Mac, start by reading “Fix a Vista to Mac failure to connect problem.”