Sharing is good

I enjoy learning new things; for that matter I find it rewarding if I can learn something new every day, regardless of how trivial or well-known it is. Yesterday, I was trying to share some files with people over in Redmond: I updating the sharing permissions on the folder, sent then an email, and went home assuming all would be well.

This morning I arrived to see a reply that they couldn't access the share. Extremely confused, I re-checked the sharing permissions and they were still the same as yesterday. Luckily, I managed to catch Brad online and he solved my problem in about thirty seconds flat.

It turns out that since the dawn of the 'My Documents' folder, I've never tried to share one of its subfolders with anyone. I usually have a temp or tools directory where I move things to and add sharing permissions as necessary. Apparently the ACL settings (visible from the security tab) aren't the same on the 'My Documents' folder as other places.

In my case, since I was sharing with other people on a trusted domain, the machine's Users group needed to be added to the Security settings with Read&Execute, and then the sharing permissions worked as expected. Just one of those things that I never realised; like how dilemma is spelt with two m's.*

*There are a number of people who were taught in childhood that the spelling was 'dilemna', although apparently no one can find real proof in a dictionary. I just noticed it this year when reading Michael Pollan's excellent book, The Omnivore's Dilemma and thought he had made a huge mistake. After reading the orgin of the word, di (two) + lemma (proposition), it makes perfect sense for it to be spelled that way, but I swear that someone taught me 'dilemna' growing up.