how can I transfer data PC-Mac. Crossover cable?

Hi everyone,

I would really appreciate some expert advice. I've been using a Mac G3 laptop/OS 8.6 for a long time, and now have an 8300 desktop running XP Home. Another important detail is that I've set up the Ethernet port on the PC to use a cable modem (that part is great!).

I read all this stuff online about doing it with a crossover cable/cat5 cable/patch cable. Since I had one, I decided to try...

I have FTP client (Mac) and server (PC) software but I can't seem to setup the connection right to do FTP. I tried disconnecting the cable modem then using the same port to connect with the Mac (via the cat5 cable). Then I  tried to modify my Network connections "Local Area Connection" -> "Properties" to assign an IP address to the PC. (I assigned an IP to my Mac using the TCP/IP interface).

The problem is that no matter what I do, I see "Network cable is unplugged", even when I reboot. To confirm that nothing is working, I check cmd-> ipconfig and see the same thing.

can I use the same ethernet port? If so, how do I reconfigure it?

Is it a windows XP problem? or some other software/equipment problem (like I need a hub and ISP)?

In the end, I can always use a Zip drive/memory key but I wanted to learn some of this stuff.

Thanks, T.