How to Setup a Mac Network

April 13th, 2009 by Mike

Setting up a network on Mac is not as complicated as it seems. This article discusses how to set up a network for the Mac OS X 10.4 system. If you have got a Mac and now want to share your files in your own personalized network, the first thing to do is to create a network. In the following paragraphs you will learn how to set up a network for a home network or for broadband internet. You do it like this:

You need to start setting up you Mac book first by checking your ports. There are around four types of networking options decided by the type of physical port that you have. The four basic ports are the switched Ethernet, crossover Ethernet, AirPort (wireless) and home phone lines. The most commonly used one is the local Ethernet though. So once you have figured out which ports to use, proceed to the next instructions.

The advantages and disadvantages if each type of port varies; in the crossover Ethernet port, though it is cost effective, it is restricted to two computers. The switched Ethernet port is very commonly available but the problem here is that older Mac systems do not support this. The wireless networks are highly convenient from anywhere in the world, cost wise it is a tad on the higher side and the speeds still do not match the Ethernet speeds as yet. Home phone lines are by far the easiest and most straightforward ones in use but it definitely is not as fast as the Ethernet connections. Local networks are very commonly used because they allow older systems to be connected to newer ones and this proves very useful when connecting anywhere anytime.

Get to the system preferences window pane. There you are going to need to pull up the network settings panel which you can use to begin your setup. You will be able to see quite a few different options displayed. By default, usually the only thing that needs to be set is the TCP/IP settings, which are used for accessing the internet. DHCP is the option that you will select and most networks run on this. After getting the correct IP address numbers from your service provider, check if it is the correct one that is displayed in the window, check the numbers against what you already have. This has to be done manually.