New Macbook

[HighHeat14]

My wife and I just purchased a new Macbook this past weekend, and we love it. We already had an iMac, so there was no way we were not buying a Mac!

Of course, the new Macbook booted right up and worked perfectly right out of the box. One thing we noticed though, it linked up with our iMac without either one of us telling it to! I could see the files on the iMac hard drive, and even the files that were on the CD that was in the iMac! This is very cool....but I don't understand how it does it without us telling it to. It kind of makes me wonder who else can access our files. Should I be concerned?

Thanks

 

[baummer]

You likely have sharing enabled on your iMac. Check your System Preferences. It's not unsual for Macs that are running Leopard to see one another easily.

 

[alphaod]

If you have sharing turned on, on your iMac and you're on the same network, then yes you will see.

 

[forafireescape]

Sharing can be a useful tool when you're using a network where you know everyone (i.e. your home), but if you don't want people to be able to look at things elsewhere, just disable sharing.

 

[CanadaRAM]

You not only have sharing turned on, but you likely chose the same login name and password on the new machine as the iMac, which means when you link to the iMac you're doing so as the owner, not as a guest. Therefore you have access to far more of the iMac than someone else on your home network would have.

 

[HighHeat14]

Thanks for the help everyone! I will check the sharing when I get home.

CanadaRam - you raise a very interesting(and true) point. Of course, my wife assumes that they are both HERS and sets herself up for the login. I guess I lost those privaledges when I got married! I'm learning as I go

 

[RainForRent]

EDIT: Should have refreshed the page before I started replying.

 

[patrickmacrumor]

CanadaRam - you raise a very interesting(and true) point.

+1. Having only one Mac (other machines run Windows), I did think about it this way.

Of course, my wife assumes that they are both HERS and sets herself up for the login. I guess I lost those privaledges when I got married! I'm learning as I go

I feel sorry for you My wife is not a big fan or OS X, and will only use it when she is too lazy to power on her PC.

--
Patrick