As you know Merlin has very powerful publishing features that allow you to publish your project files, and share them with other users or other applications.

You can publish your saved project files to:

• Other users using Merlin’s powerful Project Sharing. This will allow you to collaborate with other Merlin users using the same project file.
• The Web using Merlin’s own Web Module
• The iPhone or iPod touch using Merlin’s own iPhone Application
• iCal so you can synchronize your activities with iCal

When allowing external access to your machine you should consider setting up a Firewall. This is usually done in your router, but some users would like to use the built-in MacOS X Firewall. Here is a small description of how to set your Firewall for Merlin 2 and Merlin Server 2 on a current MacOS X 10.6.1 (snow leopard) configuration.

Merlin 2

When publishing your projects in Merlin 2, and need to do an exception in the Firewall, just open the ‘Advanced…’ dialogue.

Click onto the ‘+’,

locate the Merlin application and ‘add’ it.

Make sure that all incoming connections are allowed for Merlin…

and that STEALTH MODE is disabled. 
Close the dialogue by clicking on ‘ok’.

Merlin Server

If you want to add exceptions for the Merlin Server services on this MacOS X, locate first the MerlinServer.prefPane on your machine. You will find it in one of the following paths:

/Library/PreferencePanes

~/Library/PreferencePanes

Right click it  to ‘Show Package contents’ and locate the ‘MerlinProjectServer ‘and ‘MerlinWebServer’ applications under Contents/Resources.

Now add them both by drag & drop onto the exceptions list in the ‘Advanced’ Firewall dialogue.

Make sure before closing the dialogue, that ‘allow incoming connections’ is set for both applications…

and that STEALTH MODE is disabled.

Note: If you forgot to add the exceptions and re-start your MacOS X by an enabled Merlin Server service and activated Firewall, you will get a dialogue upon system start whether to allow all incoming connections for MerlinProjectServer or MerlinWebServer or not. Click on ‘allow’ and the applications will be added in the ‘Advanced…’ Firewall dialogue.