Networking two Macbooks with Windows PC

[-Nick]

So, I'm going to University in September, and I'll be staying in residence with a friend. Both being tech people (me in CS and him in Nanotechnology Engineering ), we've already starked talking about stuff we're gonna do. I plan on getting a Macbook for University, and my friend is seriously considering a MBP.

So the thing is, I'm going to be bringing my desktop (running XP), to kind of act as a music server for us. And living in residence, we'll want to be connected to the wireless network that provides us that beautiful free internet. So now my question to you, is not what would Jesus do, but how could we network my desktop to the two Macbooks without having to leave the residence network? Would it be possible to run a continuous network via bluetooth (if I bought a USB dongle for the dektop), or are we SOL here?

 

[volvoben]

The best setup would be to have a wireless bridge catching the free network, then a router of your own acting as DHCP server for your own private network connecting your 3 machines (could be a wireless router of course, giving you better signal since it would act as a repeater of sorts). I use a WRT54GL with DD-WRT running in bridged mode, then an old netgear router as a DHCP and NAT firewall, then a gigabit switch for my machines. It keeps my shared music and files etc. private because they're on my own separate DHCP.

Other options would involve sharing the internet connection from 1 computer to the others etc. (not sure if the XP box has wireless).

I doubt bluetooth would be useful in this situation.

Also, if you don't already use it, check out firefly for your xp box, it can share your itunes library without always running itunes.

 

[-Nick]

Thanks for the reply.

But, as it turns out, I was mistaken and although the campus itself is wireless, the residences themselves are only wired. So we could just buy a router, and use that to wirelessly share the internet as well as access iTunes. And thanks for the suggestion about firefly, I'll definitely look into that.