Wolfram, I don't remember where you live, but I always go to Craigslist for used computers. There are some really good deals if you're careful not to get scammed.

Apparently I've been living in a box. Craigslist is awesome! The sad thing is, everyone else I know has heard of it and just assumed I knew about it already. Thanks Jessica!

I went through that with my brother last week, Wolfram, although it was Angie's List he was assuming I'd heard of, not Craigslist. Sadly, Angie's List is subscription only, and isn't in California yet anyway.

Sigh. Once they believe you know everything, they stop telling you anything.

I adore Craigslist. It got me my apt. this summer.

Mac OSX question I'm having touble defining correctly for a google or apple search.

In OSX, you can turn on "internet connection sharing." Then you hook up other Macs and PC's to the Mac or to a hub connected to the Mac.

Fine and dandy if you want to use DHCP internally. I want to use static IP addresses on the internal network.

Most articles I find tall jme how to connect the *External* network with a static IP, and again assume I will be using DHCP interneally.

I want to do this on 10.3, but I can't find any settings for such an action without going for a third-party solution.

Basically, it's a matter of me already having a stable network with static ips, and I want to be able to boot into OSX and have the same stable shared network on the master machine.

Any help would be appreciated.

I'm assuming you're only getting one real IP from your ISP, so by "static IP" you just mean static internal IPs? Like, your laptop will always be 192.168.1.11 on the internal network, even though your external, "real" IP for your network is 10.1.11.178 or whatever?

What if you turn on internet connection sharing on your main Mac, then use the "DHCP with manual address" option on your secondary computers, making sure to specify a valid IP in the subnet that internet connection sharing uses? That is, if using DHCP on your secondary computer gives you the IP 192.168.1.12 or whatever, you could probably put on DHCP with manual address using the IP 192.168.1.100 if you want, and it would probably work. From then on, that computer would be 192.168.1.100. I'm not sure if a similar option is available on PCs, unfortunately - I haven't used one in years.

If you were using a router instead of a master Mac, you could just tell it to run a DHCP server but always assign certain IPs to certain MAC addresses. I'm not sure if such a thing is possible using the Mac instead, but the above solution might work.

Finally! Hard drive-based camcorders are here.

As technophiles sit down for Thanksgiving dinner, one thing they can be grateful for is the passing of the magnetic-tape era. The days of storing computer data, music collections and Hollywood movies on spools of tape will soon be completely gone.

[link]

I'm assuming you're only getting one real IP from your ISP, so by "static IP" you just mean static internal IPs? Like, your laptop will always be 192.168.1.11 on the internal network, even though your external, "real" IP for your network is 10.1.11.178 or whatever?

Right

What if you turn on internet connection sharing on your main Mac, then use the "DHCP with manual address" option on your secondary computers, making sure to specify a valid IP in the subnet that internet connection sharing uses? That is, if using DHCP on your secondary computer gives you the IP 192.168.1.12 or whatever, you could probably put on DHCP with manual address using the IP 192.168.1.100 if you want, and it would probably work. From then on, that computer would be 192.168.1.100. I'm not sure if a similar option is available on PCs, unfortunately - I haven't used one in years.

My computers are set up for 192.168.15.2 through 192.168.15.255 as possibles right now. I have a mix of machines I can put online to troubleshoot friend's computers. Currently I have a Windows XP, two Windows 98 machines and two old OS9 macs.

If you were using a router instead of a master Mac, you could just tell it to run a DHCP server but always assign certain IPs to certain MAC addresses.

If wishes were fishes... I can't afford anything right now.

I'm not sure if such a thing is possible using the Mac instead, but the above solution might work.

Actually I have all the information you've written here, but the problem seems to be that on the OSX machine I'm simply not finding where I can tell it the range to use for the DHCP internal to the home network.

The main crux of the problem is that I have something that works in OS9, and I want to transition into OSX and back with a simple reboot without having to change every machine I have working or idle...

If wishes were fishes... I can't afford anything right now.

I think I have a spare Linksys router sitting around here. I'll toss it in the box with the Mac stuff?