How do you share your computer space?

[Guest]

Any suggestions for ways to expand my home computer set-up so that my wife and I can easily access our respective files/settings/programs without stepping on each other's feet? We do not have room at home for two computer stations, so space is a concern, as is $$.

We have a G4 right now that I have been using mainly for music production on the weekends and after work. I will most certainly have to increase storage space for my stuff very soon. I'm also going to have to think about portability as I set up a studio space (maybe a CD-RW but then I'll have to get two to be able to write from the studio computer which will probably/unfortunately be a junky Power Mac).

My wife is going to start working from home very soon and has a whole different set of needs. She does web design and is also going to have to run a PC environment for some of her work (She basically needs to run many programs at once and is less concerned about disk space).

So I'm thinking we'll need more RAM, as well as another hard drive (maybe external depending on if I get the CD-RW). Or is it best to just suck it up and invest in a laptop? I'd like to hear what others would do in this situation.

Thanks.
Grant

 

[FatBurger]

I'd offer a helpful response, but I can't. Sorry.

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Apple? Macintosh? What are these strange words you speak?

 

[Porkloin]

Would you have room for a second box at your workstation? I'm thinking a KVM switch to share a keyboard, mouse and monitor between two computers would be the answer for your situation.
If you're running a G4 and want to share drives and/or files with another machine, it would be difficult with the other machine being a PC. Internet connection sharing would be difficult without a hardware router of sorts also.
If another computer is out of the question, then it becomes a matter of organization between you and the wife that can't be answered in here.

Sweating like a rancid chunk of pork

 

[Porkloin]

By the way, the wife and I have evolved into separate computers. My job has me running a 2000 Server that's continually VPN'd to the office, with terminal services running and PCAnywhere waiting for connections and MSN messenger running and all sorts of crap that she doesn't need to put up with. Both computers share the keyboard, monitor and mouse through a KVM switch.


Sweating like a rancid chunk of pork

 

[Guest]

How about an external, portable drive? For instance, Iomega has a new drive (Peerless) that I've read about and am considering. It comes with 10 and 20 gig removable media, which should be handy if your talking about great amounts of data like media files. It will have a firewire version available soon, which would allow you to edit those files in real time as well.
Of course a laptop is another alternative, providing you've got the $$s.
BTW, to your first question, can't you just set the mac for different user logins?

Al