What's the name of your computer?

[J. Backman]

My computer's name is COMPUTER. And such a pretty name it is.

[Ron Edwards]

Hey,

I'm serious - I've never named a computer anything in any way - the IP thing, retyping "My Computer," just verbally, nothing. And again, this is a wholly novel concept to me. People do this? You guys do this?

I'm scared.

Best,
Ron

[Clinton R. Nixon]

Ron,

Yep. I've named every computer I've ever owned, back from when I was 10. Wait. I actually didn't - I named my first computer when I was 13. And they've all had female names: Juliana, Beth, Sveta...

That is a disturbing conclusion I just had.

[Mike Holmes]

See, Ron, machines have to have names on Networks, or you can't tell them apart. So why not give them interesting names that you can remember. In large companies, your machines name is likely to be something like CKS3974, assigned to it by some tech. But on smaller networks it makes sense to actually name the machine so that you can refer to them mnemonically.

As Jason points out, with Mac Appletalk networks, what you see on the network when you look at another machine is the hard drive. So, to make things simple, you just name the hard drive the same mnemonic title (in fact in some versions yu don't even need the host name at all per se).

So, over time, it just becomes habit to name drives this or that.

Actually, where you see even more of this is with servers, and printers. For example, the printer I use at work is something like NBP100-4208. Like I'm goint to remember that that one's the downstairs one, and NBP100-5182 is the mail room printer. So you rename them. I have them labeled Help Desk, Mail Room, Upstairs, etc.

But again, if it's your machine, why not be creative? I don't know a macuser that doesn't do this. In fact, I couldn't tell you right now what name a mac drive ships with. I know it's not My Computer (because it doesn't logically represent that). My Hard Drive or just Hard Drive? Something like that. Dull as dirt.

Anyhow, Macs don't have drive letters. So if you have more than one, you have to name it something else to keep it straight.

Mike

[Adam]

But again, if it's your machine, why not be creative? I don't know a macuser that doesn't do this. In fact, I couldn't tell you right now what name a mac drive ships with. I know it's not My Computer (because it doesn't logically represent that). My Hard Drive or just Hard Drive? Something like that. Dull as dirt.

"Hard Drive"

Tangent: I have a 60GB firewire drive at work. My god, it is the coolest thing since sliced bread - perhaps cooler - even though it's still named "Removable Hard Drive" ;-)

[Jason Lee]

The little woman named her car too: Ozmodeus (she named her cello too: Nuriko, but insists cellos are supposed to have names).