IMac accounts sharing an Address Book, without a dot-mac account?

Question

Two Administrator accounts on one iMac, having a single Address Book in common? (Only open in one account at a time is no problem.) In this helpful 3/6/06 post, Paul Wayne addressed this issue. He said:
The easest way to do this is by move /Users -> user_name -> Library -> Application Support -> Address Book folder in the the /Users/Shared/ folder
Then make an alias by dragging the newly moved folder from /Users/Shared to the each of the user's /Users -> user_name -> Library -> Application Support while holding down the option command key.
This made sense to me. As a new convert to Tiger from System 8.6, I'm not going to try anything too adventurous. Having Address Book in both Administrator accounts open a file in
/Users/Shared/Library/Application Support/Address Book/
by way of an alias in each
/Users/UserName/Library/Application Support/Address Book/
So I reset permissions to enable both of the administrator accounts (Alice and Bob) in question to read and write to subdirectories in the /Users/Shared/ folder and did as Paul suggested.
No go. Alice now opens her address book, located in
/Users/Shared/Library/Application Support/Address Book/
But Bob still opens his own address book, notwithstanding an alias for "Address Book" pointing to the folder in Shared at
/Users/Bob/Library/Application Support/Address Book/
I tried removing the folder alias and replacing it with Bob's original "Address Book" folder, then making aliases for each of the files in the Shared "Address Book" folder and putting them in Bob's "Address Book" folder.
But when Bob opens AddressBook, he still sees his original Address Book. Surprisingly (to me), Bob's "Address Book" folder now has only the aliases for the files visible. So either the actual data files are invisible in "Address Book", or the program is calling them from some other location.
This doesn't seem like it should be an unusual desire--two separate accounts on one machine sharing a single address book. Doesn't seem that it should be a tough problem, either--Paul's solution ought to have worked.
If I start up Terminal and use Unix to "ls -al" in the folders in question, will that show that I've induced the Mac to create invisible files or aliases that are trumping my clumsy efforts?
Intel Core Duo iMac   Mac OS X (10.4.5)  

Answer 1

Hi Dozza,
The good news is YES, sharing an Address Book group(s) is easily done without .Mac
Since you are on an ethernet network, all you need to do is:
1. Enable Sharing thru System Preferences from your "main" computer you wish to transfer data from/with.
2. Drag your AB group(s) or individual cards to the desktop of your main computer - the one you have all the info in... (the cards will convert to vCards automatically.
3. Place those groups or cards in your Drop Box folder which is: Hard Drive>Users>your "Home" folder>Public>Drop Box
4. All networked computers will be able to access your Drop Box folder even if you do not want other info shared.
Of course .Mac is pretty darn handy too!
Good Luck
John