A blog post I read this morning spurred on some thoughts today -- I'm using a Mac now at work and I need to make it user friendly!

<strong><em>Step 1 - Get good software.</em></strong> Check out <a href="http://j.mp/oyhQ6d">this blog post</a> from <a href="http://twitter.com/scott_lowe">@Scott_lowe</a> and also let me add two more suggestions.  The first is CoRD and the second is Chicken of the VNC.

<em><strong>Step 2 - Map network drives</strong> </em>(from <a href="http://j.mp/qy8UrH" target="_blank">http://j.mp/qy8UrH</a>)

<strong>This method maps a network drive that will disappear if the network connection drops or if you reboot your Mac:</strong>

<strong> </strong>From the Mac OS X Finder, hit Command+K to bring up the ‘Connect to Server’ window.  Enter the path to the network drive you want to map, ie: smb://networkcomputer/networkshare and click ‘Connect’.  Enter your login/password and click “OK” to mount the network drive.  The drive will now appear on your desktop and in the Finder window sidebar

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<strong>This method allows you to reboot your Mac and have the mapped network drive automatically remount and appear on the desktop, this is more persistent than the above method:</strong>

<strong> </strong>From the Finder, hit Command+K.  Enter the path to the network drive you want to map, ie: smb://networkcomputer/networkshare and click ‘Connect’.  Enter your login credentials and click “OK”.  The drive is now mounted, but continue on to map for system reboot persistence.  Now enter into System Preferences, from the Apple menu.  Click on ‘Accounts’.  Click on “Login Items”.  Click on the + button to add another login item.  Locate the network drive you previously mounted and click “Add”.  Exit out of System Preferences