OS X file sharing: truly weird

Mac OS: How to Connect to File Sharing or Apple File Services (AFP)

I've used OS X for about 3 years now. File sharing has always been odd. SMB sharing finally works well, but today I enabled sharing from an Apple server.

I had a hard time figuring it out. I started with the IP address -- that worked using afp://10.0.0.1. Then I researched and learned this would work too: afp://MyMachineName.local -- but the .local was required. Lastly I learned that if you browse for the server it's in Network:Local, not in Servers where one, instead, can find the name of the client machine.

Don't tell me that's not weird. It also takes a few seconds on my iBook for the remote share to appear, I had to wait a bit.

I think I'll use the 'scrap' technique I use with my SMB shares to create a simpler reference.

Lastly, somewaht contradictory to the documentation, if you login with a username and password that matches an admin account on the host machine, you can browse everything the local admin can (I only tested a write to my own server directory).

None of this is anywhere near as transparent as the OS Classic approach -- and that wasn't too simple either.

Weird.

One does get a nice choice of file sharing protocols however: smb, afp, ftp, etc.