> >My only concerns at this moment are the hard drive and the size of >the System folder. The hard drive has run a lot of hours in the last >4 years and I don't know how to check it out for problems or >unreliability. I am getting crashes but these could also be from the >programs. The system folder is over 400 MB and that seems huge to me.
The only things that I would add to the responses I've already seen are: 1) If/when you do borrow someone's Norton Utilities, TechTool, and/or Disk Warrior, be sure that it's the correct version for the operating system you're using! A version which is too old can really mess things up. I use Norton 6, TechTool 3 on my OS 8.6 machines. 2) When you surf the web, your browser downloads all the information you see - text, graphics, etc - to a cache folder in your System folder. When you revisit the same site, it'll pull the relevant piece from your cache instead of re-downloading it, speeding your access to the page on subsequent visits. Unfortunately, the cache folder can get pretty full after a while, and you start to lose that performance gain - and the space on your hard drive. To cure the problem, open Explorer, pull down the EDIT menu to PREFERENCES. Under WEB BROWSER, click on ADVANCED. In the CACHE section is a button for EMPTY NOW. Click that. If it's been a long time, it may take a while to clean out. Check the available space on your HD before and after to see if it made a difference. Similarly, you may have a pile of cache built up from having used Netscape in the past. If you still have a copy of Netscape installed, you should be able to follow a similar procedure with it: Edit, Prefs, Advanced, Cache, Clear Disk Cache Now. (in NN 4.0.8 - exact location may vary from one version to the next.) 3) To connect your two machines, you can use either Appletalk or, if they both have it, Ethernet. Take a look in the back of your Wallstreet Dock. See if it has a jack that looks like a phone jack, but with 8 pins instead of the usual 4 or 6. That's Ethernet. Your SM probably has it built in, but I'm not absolutely sure of that, as I have a pair of S900s. IF they both have Ethernet jacks, that's the way to go. You can probably get a cable to connect the two at any decent computer shop. Just tell them you want a "Crossover Ethernet Cable". If your eyes are good, you can put the two jacks next to each other and look at the color pattern of the wires inside - if they're exactly in the same order, it's not a crossover type and you can't use it to hook two computers up directly. If they don't both have Ether, you can use Appletalk, but it takes a fair bit longer that way. You can use a regular Mac printer cable to run an appletalk network between the two machines - just hook up the printer port on one to the printer port on the other. Then go to your Control Panels, to Appletalk, on each machine. Change the "Connect Via: " to the appropriate method. (hopefully, you have the appletalk control panel on both machines. if not there, check the Control Panels (disabled) folder.) Next (dang, I forgot there are so many steps! I can do this stuff in my sleep, but I don't usually talk anyone through it.) go to your File Sharing control panel on at least one machine. Enter an Owner Name and a Computer Name. If you never hook up to any other machines but your own, you probably won't need a password. But for the security conscious among us, it won't hurt to put one in. Then click the START button for File Sharing. It may take a few minutes to start up. Now pull down the APPLE menu to Chooser on the OTHER computer. Click on AppleShare in the left hand pane. If it's not there, you'll want to check for AppleShare in your Extensions(disabled) folder. If either your Appletalk control panel or AppleShare extension are missing, you'll need to get them from somewhere. Normally, you could install them from your system install CD, but since that got scrunched it'd be pretty tricky. They're small files, I'd be happy to email you a copy of each if you need. If all is plugged in and working correctly, you should see an icon and the name of your first computer in the right hand window. Double click on it, enter your Owner name and/or password, and then choose the name of the hard drive you want to share information to/from. Your hard drive from the other computer should now mount on the desktop of this one. You should be able to drag and drop files from one to the other at will (except for programs that you are running). Back up all your important files from the smaller drives to the larger. Sure beats floppies, or even Zips, once you get it set up. As someone else mentioned, you probably don't have to bother with the system and applications files (though I usually like to keep a copy of the System Folder:Preferences folder, since that's where many of your serial numbers and other such settings are stored). 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