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

["Patricia M. Godfrey" PriscaMG@xxxxxxxx]

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.
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, 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, 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.)

Patricia M. Godfrey
Priscamg@xxxxxxxx