need advice/suggestions on networking & office set-up...
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long post alert!
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i need some help and advice/suggestions about networks and office set-up for my own business, and hope some AI people might have some.
my wife and i run our own design studio -- its just us. we have found out we are expecting a baby so this means that we need to change our working arrangements somewhat, and i'm a bit stuck what to do.
background
we work in an studio about a mile from our home. the studio has an ADSL net connection, coming into a 4 port ADSL modem/router. we each have a PowerBook, which we plug into the router. There is a laser printer connected to the router.
the router has a static ip, the rest of the machines have assigned ips in the 192.168.7.x range.
we use an old UMAX mac clone with a G4 card, running 10.2.8 as our file server also connected to the network. this holds all our past work (so we can retrieve it at anytime), and copies of current work. it also runs iWork server, which we use for project management. the server is backed up to a filewire hard drive each night.
we each work on our own projects stored locally on our laptops then sync them with the server each day.
we do work from home occasionally, but we know in advance and make sure we have files we need with us. the other person is often working in the studio and can send files across the net to them in an emergency.
what we want
as we are expecting a small person, we want to change the way we work. at the moment we can't do our ideal thing, which is to move into a bigger house and have a studio and work from home. so we will be keeping our studio. my wife will be working part-time to begin with and will be working from home. i will work from the studio, and also from home (so i can be around the baby as much as possible).
we need to be able to access files and work from the file server wherever we are -- home or studio. we need an easier way than we have now for keeping files synced and up-to-date.
so...
any ideas or suggestions?
long post alert!
</warning>
i need some help and advice/suggestions about networks and office set-up for my own business, and hope some AI people might have some.
my wife and i run our own design studio -- its just us. we have found out we are expecting a baby so this means that we need to change our working arrangements somewhat, and i'm a bit stuck what to do.
background
we work in an studio about a mile from our home. the studio has an ADSL net connection, coming into a 4 port ADSL modem/router. we each have a PowerBook, which we plug into the router. There is a laser printer connected to the router.
the router has a static ip, the rest of the machines have assigned ips in the 192.168.7.x range.
we use an old UMAX mac clone with a G4 card, running 10.2.8 as our file server also connected to the network. this holds all our past work (so we can retrieve it at anytime), and copies of current work. it also runs iWork server, which we use for project management. the server is backed up to a filewire hard drive each night.
we each work on our own projects stored locally on our laptops then sync them with the server each day.
we do work from home occasionally, but we know in advance and make sure we have files we need with us. the other person is often working in the studio and can send files across the net to them in an emergency.
what we want
as we are expecting a small person, we want to change the way we work. at the moment we can't do our ideal thing, which is to move into a bigger house and have a studio and work from home. so we will be keeping our studio. my wife will be working part-time to begin with and will be working from home. i will work from the studio, and also from home (so i can be around the baby as much as possible).
we need to be able to access files and work from the file server wherever we are -- home or studio. we need an easier way than we have now for keeping files synced and up-to-date.
so...
any ideas or suggestions?
Comments
some days we are just working on html/css files, so the data is tiny. other times its photoshop, illustrator or indesign files.
maybe a couple of hundred meg a day? certainly not gigabytes worth.
its £70 pa each for a .mac membership. plus £250 for the 1 gig space upgrade (don't know f that is per annum...)
but 1gig won't be enough -- one project we do is a magazine which happens twice a year and takes up 1 gig by itself.
thanks for the suggestion though
The only other easy solution that i can think of is order a nother IP from your ISP and put a FTP server in the DMZ. Just make sure that it backs up to some thing that is not on the public side of the network. Like a USB drive attached to your Mac when you are home. I know OS X has a FTP pack in it. it is in the control pannel and then netowrk sharing, i think...
i might give that a go, as it won't involve any expense, just some time with me and the manuals (my wife is going to be so happy about that prospect, not!)
Originally posted by gsxrboy
www.portforward.com
woot!
thanks