How often do Mac and PC users in your home trot between computers with a thumb drive just to share Word docs? Or vacation photos and music? Or try to get Macs and PCs to share the same printer? Let the madness end!

You’ve seen the ads pitting Macs against PCs? We say live and let live! Network Magic for Mac Add-on 4.0 lets them both work and play on the same network, share files, music, photos – all the digital assets you enjoy today.

Network Magic for Mac Add-On is a free, downloadable 7-day trial (after that it’s $20 for the full-featured package – we think that’s pretty reasonable for keeping peace in the family). You install the Mac Add-On on each Mac in your home or office that shares an Internet connection.

It’s designated as an add-on because you do need Network Magic for PC first -- but we’re assuming that you wouldn’t be adding Macs to your network unless you already had a PC network, right?

Depending on which Network Magic license you've purchased, you can run this home networking software on between 3 and 8 PCs in your home. Then if you purchase the Network Magic for Mac Add-On, you can install Network Magic on up to eight additional Macs.

One caveat: the Mac Add-On lets you print to the same printer from any computer – as long as your printer is on Apple’s list of supported printers. That includes Windows, XP, Vista and Mac OS Mac OS X v10.4.11 (Tiger) or 10.5.3 (Leopard) or later.*

The only feature not supported by the Add-On at present is the parental controls feature. That is, it does work to control Internet access for anyone on a PC in your home, but not on the Macs. Not yet, anyway.

But stay tuned. After all, Network Magic was the first home networking solution to work across all major operating systems, including Windows XP, Vista and Mac. And we want to keep peace in your family, no matter what computer you use.

To view a list of supported printers, go to
http://docs.info .apple.com/article.html?artnum=301175.

Bear in mind that Apple is always working to improve printer compatibility – both customers and printer manufacturers demand it. As they continue to build in more printer drivers to the Mac OS, we add them to Network Magic automatically.