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How do you share information with your spouse?

Hey all,

I've recently been racking my brain on how exactly to share information (the digital kind) with my wife. We've been together for 7 years, but only started living with each other (as opposed to different states and countries like before) after we got married in May.

What kind of info? Finances, bills, to-dos, and other stuff like maybe a health or vehicle log. I do a lot of banking online (and she didn't) but most of that stuff is based around one user account. I've thought about setting up a wiki, and looked in to VoodooPad as well. We have 2 Macbooks and an Airport Extreme, which I am purchasing an external hard drive for, to make a shared drive, which I thought about putting all of these docs on. Short of buying OS X Server though, I'm pretty lost.

I have to imagine that this is a common problem with couples and families, so perhaps there are other suggestions out there? I've thought about Backpack, but think I might need something more secure.

Thanks, Matt

mwr's picture

Re: How do you share information with your spouse?

I think OS X workstation will handle up to 10 connections from remote systems, so what about just getting a Mac Mini (even a G4 would be enough) and using that as the "server" out of the box? I wouldn't normally use a laptop as a server, since there's normally a fair chance it'll be away from the house when I need it.

Unless I'm way off base, any OS X system should be able to serve files via Appletalk or SMB (for any Windows systems that ever happen along), and you should be able to set up some kind of wiki pretty easily, too. And I guess you could consolidate your iTunes content.

If you needed access to the content from off-site, you'd need to set up some port-forwarding rules in your home router (e.g., to send all inbound webserver traffic to the Mini), and then to make it easy to remember what address to use to contact your home server, you register an account with dyndns.org so that mjc.dyndns.org (or any other name you want under 88 different domains) will resolve back to your place.

That's a fair amount of DIY, but it's not ridiculous. You could also opt to get a web host somewhere else, and put the Wiki there.

 
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