John C. Welch

Ever since Mac OS X Lion was announced, many of us have been wondering what it will mean for businesses and IT departments. So far, that discussion has focused largely on distribution: How will Apple's Mac-App-Store-only approach work when you're installing and managing the new OS on dozens, if not hundreds, of machines? But while that is indeed a big question (to which we know some, but not all, of the answer), it's not the only one worth asking. Mac OS X Lion has more than 250 new features; a few of them will really matter to businesses and IT. What will they mean? Here's what I think.

AirDrop

While there are plenty of ways to protect your iPad and its data from ne'er do wells, one way is of specific interest to business users: the virtual private network or VPN.

Out of the box, with no additional software, the iPad supports three kinds of VPNs: Layer 2 Tunneling Protocol (L2TP), Point-To-Point Tunneling Protocol (PPTP), and Cisco IPSec (that stands for Internet Protocol Security). All three do much the same thing, just in different ways. The kind of VPN you set up on your iPad depends entirely on the kind of VPN that's set up on the network you're connecting to.

I'm getting ready to purchase a new iMac and MacBook Air. I already have a Windows PC from Dell and an HP LaserJet 3030 printer. The two Macs and that PC are all going to share that printer. Do I need to get a print server? I've heard that many of them work only with Windows PCs or only with Macs. Can you recommend one that will work with both?

Connecting multiple computers, with different operating systems, to a single shared printer isn't nearly as hard as it used to be. I don't think you need a print server. What I would do is just connect the LaserJet to the Windows box, then configure Windows to share it. It's far easier for Mac OS X to connect to printers shared by Windows than it is to do it the other way around.

We currently have two Intel iMacs and two MacBook Pros connected by an Ethernet-and-wireless network. We've also had a G5 PowerMac (running OS X 10.4.11) that was connected to an HP 5MP printer using an Asante Ethernet-to-Appletalk bridge. When we upgraded one of the iMacs to 10.6, it could no longer connect to the printer via Appletalk, so we set up the HP 5MP as a share from the G5 and printed that way.

Then the G5 died and we took it off the network. However, the 10.6 iMac that was printing to the shared printer still thinks it and the G5 server are there, and it searches for them whenever we reset any printer options (such as duplex printing or save as PDF). We then have to wait a minute or more until the "The server G5 can not be found" message appears; we can then choose new printing options. However, the iMac doesn't remember those changes and will repeat the process the next time we print. The MacBook Pros that were upgraded to OS X 10.6 have no problem. I have cleared iMac's caches, re-installed the OS, reset PRAM, started in Safe Mode. Nothing has helped. Any suggestions?

I have a wireless router (non-Apple) here in the house, and all the machines there connect to it using their built-in WiFi with DHCP. I also have one of the original Airport Extreme (802.11g) base stations out in my woodworking shop; it connects to the router in the house via Ethernet cable. I have an old Power Mac G4 and an Aluminum PowerBook in the shop; they too use Airport and DHCP to connect to the base station. The Macs in the shop can see each other over the network, and the Macs in the house can see each other, but the ones in the shop can't see the ones in the house and vice-versa. I really want to share files between all the machines, but I haven't been able to get it to work.

Sounds like you're running two separate networks with two separate DHCP servers that are only loosely connected. Further complicating this is the fact you have base stations from different vendors; while there are wireless standards, there's no standard way to implement them. Assuming that you're still using the default configurations on both, and because each router is acting as its own DHCP server, you probably have some Macs with identical IP addresses. That's why getting the machines on one network to see the machines on the other is going to be a bit of a trick.

We have a G5 Xserve running 10.5, which we use to provide file services, iChat, DNS, software updates, and FTP to 15 end-users who are all running OS X (10.5 or 10.6). We have two 500GB mirrored drives for file storage, another 500GB (connected through an eSATA card) for archiving, and a 2TB drive for backups. This has been a good fit for us. But now that Apple has discontinued the Xserve product line, what upgrade path should I follow if I want to future-proof that system? I could have upgraded to Xserve 10.7, but it's too late for that.

Providing 15 users with the services you list is not a heavy workload; any computer Apple currently makes could handle it. It's really a question of which Mac has the connections and capacity you need.

I have a series of older 802.11 b/g Airport Expresses set up in several rooms of the house, to let me stream music; at the heart of it all is a Time Capsule (which uses 802.11 b/g/n). They all work fine, except in my son's room, which is furthest from the Time Capsule; his old Titanium laptop gets really poor reception.

So I installed my old Airport Extreme in his room and configured it to extend the network from the Time Capsule. My son now gets perfect WiFi for his laptop. But if I try to stream music to any of the Airport Expresses, they keep dropping the signal. Why doesn't this work? And is there some better way to extend my network to the furthest room?

I use Mail.app at home for both my home and work e-mail (Mobile Me and Microsoft Exchange 2003 respectively). For a while, it worked great. Then all of a sudden I couldn't send messages from the work e-mail account--I could receive, but I couldn't send; the Mobile Me account continued to work just fine, in both directions. When I asked my IT department, I was told there had been a problem with one of the Exchange servers and that it had to be reset or replaced. But they also said that that should not have affected me. They suggested that I recheck the account from an iPhone. Of course, the iPhone worked perfectly. But that doesn't help Mail on my home Mac or my work laptop. One funny thing: When I bring the laptop to work and connect wirelessly there, I can send, without changing its settings. One other thing that might be helpful: To connect the iPhone to the Exchange server, we use a Webmail server. The IT department has given up at this point. Can you help?

The things you point out, like the fact that "it works from the internal WiFi", tell me that your IT folks may not have made sure that SMTP is visible from the outside world. Using Outlook Web Access (OWA) on the iPhone is absolutely nothing like using SMTP from another mail client, so the fact that they can get to a Webmail page is of no use whatsoever in connecting to Exchange via SMTP from the outside world. Also, checking the SMTP settings with an iPhone will work only if the iPhone is using SMTP and not Exchange ActiveSync (EAS).

It's certainly possible to connect Macs to networks that are running Active Directory. But sometimes it takes a little doing.

-----

Two more questions this week: one about finding missing printer drivers, the other about accessing Microsoft DFS shares from a Mac.

Where's the driver?

I'm a volunteer systems administrator for my church. We have a mix of PCs and Macs (desktops and laptops). My question is about Active Directory and user passwords: Is there an easy way to prompt the Mac users to reset their Active Directory passwords before those passwords expire? Our AD polices require password changes But because the Mac users are not prompted, their passwords often expire and need to be manually reset. Does Outlook 2011 support such notifications? Are there other alternatives?

You can do it, but only if a few conditions are met:

A couple of weeks ago, I invited you to send me your Mac IT questions. And boy did you ever. We received dozens of queries, from Mac users of all stripes, from experienced IT staffers to networking novices. Here's the first, but this is just a taste; there are dozens more where this one came from.

And I'd like to see even more. E-mail any questions you might have to macitguy (at) macworld.com. I'll try to get to yours as soon as I can.