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My Mac home dilema

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  • 14-02-2009 5:37pm
    #1
    robmullen
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2 ✭


    So this is my first post on boards.ie but i'v been looking in through this forum and it seems that you wise people will be able to help me out! I apologise in advance if this post is long.

    So i am looking for advice on how best to organize all the macs in our home. I have my MBP which i use everyday as my main work machine, a 24" iMac in the study, and my two daughters both have macbooks.

    Currently i have an Airport Extreme which handles all the macs wifi plus our iphones and ipod touches etc. So what i want is to turn the iMac into a type of server (not sure if this is the right term) for the house.

    My daughters each have itunes accounts and to avoiding me paying for songs twice they swap over songs to eachother quite frequently and usually do this using USB thumb drives. Is it possible for me to put all the music on the iMac creating one master collection and then they can just choose what they want over the airport?

    I have a few more questions that i'm sure i will end up asking. But any help on this matter would be really appreciated. Or any suggestion or solutions or changes you would make to my idea are also welcome.

    Regards, Robert
    Tagged:


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    #2
    J-blk
    Registered Users Posts: 3,906 ✭✭✭J-blk


    robmullen wrote: »
    Is it possible for me to put all the music on the iMac creating one master collection and then they can just choose what they want over the airport?

    Yes, what you're looking for is baked right into iTunes itself and very easy to do. Your first step will be to collect all the music on the iMac itself - then, in iTunes, go to the iTunes menu => Preferences => Sharing and enable "Share my library on my local network" - you can even select specific media to share (e.g music only) or even specific playlists.

    Now on the other Macs around the house, you should be able to see the shared library under the "Shared" section on the left hand sidebar (where your local library is) and access all the shared out music, play it back, etc.

    If you want them to be able to copy the music to their Macs as well, that's easy enough to do too, if you enable file sharing on the iMac and share out the music folder (System Preferences => Sharing => File Sharing and add the Music folder or whatever else you wish to share out on the network).


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    #3
    robmullen
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2 ✭robmullen


    Thanks for you help. I'll try this tonight and see if i have any luck.


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    #4
    nialler
    Registered Users Posts: 896 ✭✭✭nialler


    In sharing the main iTunes libary on the iMac is ok, but they will not be able to copy those songs onto their ipods or iphones, I'm nearly sure you can authorize a couple of devices on the main account and that'll enable the kids to copy their music on but if they can't you'll have to break the drm on the music and that will allow them to put it onn their pods.


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