Re: off-topic: scheduled backup to external hard drive

[Norman Bauman nbauman@xxxxxxxx]

At 04:58 PM 4/3/06 -0400, Patricia M. Godfrey wrote:
>
>Norman Bauman wrote:
>> Windows computers are also supposed to be able to connect directly through
>> that briefcase or Network Neighborhood or something, but I couldn't get
>> that to work.
>
>Briefcase and Network Neighborhood are two entirely different things.
>Briefcase is a way to allegedly sync files that you take off one machine
>on a floppy (or a flash drive), then bring back. The gotcha is that if
>you copy the files to the hard drive of another PC (at least in 9x) to
>work on them, the syncking doesn't work.

After reading the manuals, I thought you had to set up Briefcase for
Network Neighborhood to work.

>Network Neighborhood is the way to see other PCs on the Network. For it
>to work, you have to have
>1. A physical connection between the two PCs: etherlink cards and Cat 5
>cable, a direct cable parallel connection,

I was trying to connect 2 Win98 computers with Network Direct Cable
Connection. According to the manual, you could use a serial connection too.
The Network Direct Cable Connection Wizard told me that I had successfully
set up the host computer and the guest computer. I rebooted everything. It
tried to connect through the serial connection, and said, "I am unable to
find other computers on the Network Neighborhood List." I went through the
Windows Troubleshooter, checked the Stinson and O'Reilly manuals, searched
the Internet, couldn't get it to work, and put it off for another day.

>Wi-Fi; there are USB cables
>specially designed to work like a parallel direct cable connection, but
>I've never tried them.
>2. A properly configured network. This involves running a Windows
>Wizard, biding protocols to the Network card,

Network card? The official Win98 instructions definitely said that you can
connect 2 Windows computers together. They didn't say anything about a
network card.

>naming each PC and making
>sure they're all in the same workgroup, and probably a few other steps
>I've forgotten. It's not rocket science (I've done it some half a dozen
>times) but neither is it a piece of cake, esp. the first few times.
>(Unless, of course, like Robert you know the command-line commands by
>heart and can just type them in; much better, but we mere mortals don't
>do it often enough to remember all that.)

-------------------------------------------------------
Norman Bauman
411 W. 54 St. Apt. 2D
New York, NY 10019
(212) 977-3223
http://www.nasw.org/users/nbauman
Alternate address: nbauman@xxxxxxxx
-------------------------------------------------------