I recently added a new computer to my four-Mac network and I've screwed things up somewhere. Every file now created on every Mac is read-only. Any ideas on where I went wrong? OS 10.6.8

A friend suggested that I save a new document to a thumb drive and check the sharing privileges. Sure enough, it was read/write. Something in the way I have things set up is keeping everything in read only.

In the System pane of Marcel Bresink's TinkerTool System you can set the defaults permissions for new files. I know TinkerTool System uses Unix command line commands to do its thing, but I have no idea what the actual commands it uses are.

You say you have a network. When people are using the network, how are they logging on?

Say you have Mac A and Mac B. Say Mac A's user is Joe and Mac B's user is Ann.

If Ann logs onto Mac A using Ann's username and password, then files Ann makes will be read-only to Joe, and Joe's files will be read-only to Ann.

Either Ann has to log on to Mac A with Joe's username and password, or you need to create a user (Ann) on Joe's computer that has read/write privileges.

I appreciate the responses and I apologize for not getting back on this problem. Busy times.

Let me back up a step. Even if I turn file sharing off, any new file that I create in any program is Read Only. The problem goes beyond the network and the need for others to write on the files. That's what I'm trying to puzzle out now.

A bit belated, perhaps, but maybe... Have you tried booting from your OS X install disc and repairing home permissions?