Mac Windows integration: avoid special characters

The advice from this specific kb article is probably applicable to any mixed Windows/Mac environment. Anything that's "named" should stick to the old "non-special" ascii character set, including usernames and passwords ...

Mac OS X 10.4: Can't print to a printer shared by Microsoft Windows

...

* The printer's shared name contains a space or special character (see below).
* The name of the computer sharing the printer contains a space or special character.
* The Windows user's name or user's password contains a space or special character.

What's a 'special character?' It's a typed character other than A-Z, 0-9, !, $, *, (, ), _, , -, ' . .

The following are not special characters and are OK to use in the printer name, Windows computer name, Windows user name, and Windows user password:

A a B b C c D d E e F f G g H h I i J j K k L l M m N n O o P p Q q R r S s T t U u V v W w X x Y y Z z 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 . ! $ * ( ) _ - '"

By the time we all support UTF-8, we'll need to move to a character set that supports non-human languages ....