AppleTalk in Directory Access

On campus last night, I discovered that when browsing the Network, only Windows Workgroups would show up in the list. Aha, no problemo, thought I, I’ll just turn on AppleTalk. But AppleTalk was already on.

Turns out you have to turn on AppleTalk in Directory Access (handily located in Applications -> Utilities) or there’s no go on browsing for AppleTalk zones.

Seems a little bit weird to me that Apple would ship with AppleTalk zones browsing off. Is this a nod to “chatty AppleTalk must be killed, die die die” system administrators?

It’s also interesting that Directory Access is locked by default–you must authenticate as an administrator to make any changes, even when logged on as an administrator user. Hmm. I’m going to have to look deeper into the wonderful world of Directory Access.

As a sidenote, I really hope somebody is working on a way to switch Network browsing back to the Way God Intended–when I mount a server, I want it to show up in the volumes list, nacknamit! I need a visual reminder that I have servers mounted, since the Finder still has a tendency to soil itself when the laptop wakes up in a new location where the server is nowhere to be found.

Perhaps a script to look for mounted servers and dismount them when putting the computer to sleep?

Music: Godbrain by Wiseblood

Posted Tuesday, 25 November, 2003 by Nic Lindh

« Uh-oh. Nerd alert

The Two Towers »