Airport: Share files wirelessly?

[g725s]

I just upgraded to 10.6 from 10.4 on my iMac. But I also got my son 9yo a Mac Mini, his first computer. His is also upgraded to 10.6

A friend gave me the older mushroom shaped Airport Extreme. I got my son's Mac Mini to access the internet wirelessly with it. I could not explain now how exactly I did it, I just followed the screens and kind of did it on the fly. But his Mac Mini is surfing the internet just fine and good speed.

But I have an external HD with pictures on it which is firewire connected to my iMac that I'd like to be able to access wirelessly from my son's Mac Mini.

Is there a way to access files from one Mac to another with the Airport Extreme?

 

[satcomer]

Look in the folder /Applications/Utilities/ and find the application "Airport Utility". Once Airport Utility finds the Express log into it and setup everything you want.

 

[telecomm]

Just to add a bit more detail, if the computers are on the same network (so, having your iMac join the wireless network would be one easy way to get this set up), you have a number of ways to share photos.

For example, if you've got the photos filed in iPhoto on your iMac, just go to the iPhoto preferences and under Sharing check the Share my photos box. Leaving iPhoto running on the iMac, open iPhoto on the Mini and you'll get access to all the Albums you've set to share on the iMac.

 

[g725s]

I did finally get the sharing thing working.

My Airport network is WPA/WPA2 with a password. I just went to Sharing in Preferences and selected what I thought was needed.

Now my question is how secure is my networking connection? I did not have a firewall on when I transferred photos from the external HD connected to the iMac base station.

But when I turn on the firewall I can no longer do any file sharing.

Is the Airport WPA/WPA2 with the password secure enough to not use the firewall? Or should I just turn off the firewall whenever I want to transfer files?

Also I thought I read that I could adjust the range of my network. I'll have to look into that more and see if I can limit the range to just my house.


edit: Looks like I figured out how to have the firewall on and file share too. So I guess it is working. Just hope it is secure enough. I'll have to do more reading up on it.