Sharing media on the Mac

With the new dream machine at home (yes, I know I’m wearing it thin, but we all know this will pass soon as the new iMac now with turbo-overdrive comes along, so I must seize the opportunity while it lasts) ;-) I have finally setup a nice multi-user desktop environment for me and my wife.

And, of course, no such setup would complete without sharing the massive music and pictures collection.

But this poses a bit of a challenge as the default Mac apps (iTunes and iPhoto) don’t do this very well. They both assume that every user has his/her own library and sharing is only done while they are on-line and running the corresponding application.

Dumb!

Well, after doing a bit of research and thinking about it for a bit I decided to take care of it.

The results are OK (while not brilliant) and I decided to do a couple of how-tos on the process.

The how-tos are not terribly original and due credit is given therein.

So now there are yet two more tutorials around on “how to share an iTunes library between users on the same machine” and “how to share an iPhoto library between users on the same machine”. Referenced here for posterity.

Revolution

Applications don’t bounce on the dock anymore, they just launch instantaneously (even Photoshop).

Quicksilver starts in under 2 seconds and when I press the magic-key combo to call upon it, it immediately awaits my command. Oh and it finds and does whatever I want it to do before I have time to blink (i.e. Quicksilver just became useful).

Neverwinter Nights runs beautifully with every graphical bell and whistle turned on and with a pornographically high resolution. It is fast and gorgeous.

Homeworld 2 is just indescribable. Pure beauty.

Yes, the new iMac changed my life. ;-)