CIFS shares (Windows file sharing) can be read/written to fine over the
network from any Mac.  I copy things from the MacBook to the Windows XP
machine in the basement all the time.

You also mentioned FTP... tons of graphical FTP clients out there, like
FileZilla... if you have an FTP server somewhere in the network.

Nothing tricky about any of your current requirements.  If you start to get
into file locking, or have any strange permissions or other requirements, it
starts to get more interesting.

To just "share files", it's all built into modern OS's these days, and
generally works.

Adding in the web-based requirement adds unnecessary complexity, but there
are a number of PHP-based "groupware" applications that can do this, if you
want to go through the brain-damage of setting them up on a dedicated Linux
server, or similar.

Nate 

-----Original Message-----
From: piclist-bounces@mit.edu [mailto:piclist-bounces@mit.edu] On Behalf Of
Josh Koffman
Sent: Wednesday, March 25, 2009 10:49 PM
To: Microcontroller discussion list - Public.
Subject: [TECH] Cross platform file repository

Hi all. I have a problem I've never had to solve before. I've been
asked to help setup a file repository that will work with both Mac and
PC clients. Based on my guesses at the competence level of the users,
something simple would probably be best. Based on the available
hardware and software I have at my disposal, it will likely have to be
Windows XP based. Yes, I know this would be easier on Linux, I just
can't do that at the moment.

What I'd ideally love is essentially some sort of web based ftp
server. Users type in the IP of the server machine and are presented
with a directory listing. From there they can navigate around and
download individual files or complete directories. Essentially I'd
love it if there was a way to mimic native folder access to things on
a remote drive. I feel the users of both Windows and OSX could
understand that, and drag and drop is pretty self explanatory now.

Anyway, all ideas are welcome. I'm not sure what the best method for
this is, and I'm unfortunately not a web programmer so I can't make my
own way!

Thanks,

Josh
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