NetInfo Manager in Leopard Disappears... but in a Good Way

Given the copious amount of information on our Macs these days, a popular and affordable solution can be to use a Mac Mini and and External FireWire drive as a poor man's Mac server. Now, like so many things, you get what you pay for: there are many limitations to this set-up. However, if all you're doing is keeping a central repository for your Documents, iTunes library, and iPhoto library.. this may be a solution.

If you have such a set-up, and you've upgraded to Leopard (10.5) you may discover that the old stand-by method of pointing to a home folder on an external drive by using NetInfo Manager has a bit of a problem: NetInfo Manager no longer exists. While this may seem like a step back, Apple has managed to make the process easier and more intuitive - but you have to get into the habit of right-clicking (control-clicking) everything to discover options. Home folders have something to do with accounts, so, try right-clicking your account (System Preferences -> Accounts), et voila, the only option available is "Advanced Options" and there you go: simply select the location of the home folder you desire, external or internal.

Be aware, however, that some bugs never change. If something messes up, usually as the result of a sudden unanticipated shut-down, otherwise known as a crash, and your Mac can no longer find the external home folder you may have to rename the external drive, and then point it to the newly re-named drive and the original folder therein.

Isn't it a nice, warm, fuzzy feeling to find the same bugs across OS versions? Mmmmm......