Hi all,

Networking is above my head; I barely know the terms, and even less
their implications.

I wrote software for a small office (4 networked computers) and now
I need to install my two applications and also the Firebird engine.
Helen's book has pages and pages on this topic, but it is rather a bit
above me. Could someone give me a baby step-by-step, without the
jargon? I would greatly appreciate it!

The hardware and OS:

There are four computers running XP Pro. They are peer-to-peer
(the term the systems guy used) connected wirelessly via the router.
The main computer was set up so that a directory on its C drive,
called C:\DATA, is visible to the other three computers, which see it
as their drive Z.

The software:

I've written a couple of applications in Delphi 5 using Firebird as
the database engine. I've used Delphi 5 Interbase components for the
database access.
I want anyone on any of the four computers to run either of my two
application and access the (common) database. This will be light-duty
usage of three small databases.

Three questions, perhaps linked:

1. How, and where, do I install Firebird 1.5.x?

2. Do I put copies of each of the two applications on each computer,
or do I put them in the DATA directory of the main computer and have
users run multiple instances from their computer's Z ?drive"?

3. What do I specify for the tIBDatabase component's DatabaseName
property? (Aliases seem appropriate, but I'm not sure how to create
nor use them.)

Your responses will, I'm sure, be a great intro for me to this
issue of a networked environment. I'm looking forward to your help!

Many thanks,
-- Stan