How to mount remote CD rom on Mac OS X

The CD Rom on my MacBook Pro no longer works. I'm sure it's a driver problem, since I rarely use it. However, there are any number of Macs in my office with working CD/DVD drives. How can I mount one of those remote drives on my machine, so I can install iWork O8?

That was the problem I faced today. I Googled for the answer, thinking "hey, this is a Mac. There must be an easy way to do this."

Believe it or not, I could not find any encouraging answers. Actually, just the opposite. I found several posts that said it was impossible, or that used various overly complicated looking Unix commands to create an ISO, move it to the local drive, mount it, blah, blah, blah.

This is a Mac, I thought. There must be an easier way.

And, indeed, there is. Here's how to do it:

First, on the machine with the working CD/DVD rom, enable Personal File Sharing, through the Sharing button in System Preferences.

Second, insert the CD rom you want to install from in the working CD/DVD rom and wait for it to mount

Then, on the machine with the broken CD/DVD rom drive:

• open Finder
• from the Go menu, choose Network
• click on the name of the remote computer
• click the 'Connect' button
• choose the volume you want to mount, in this case, the CD rom
  
• log in to the remote machine... of course you need to have an account on that machine, or 'borrow' a login from the machine's owner

That's it. You now have the remote CD/DVD mounted on your desktop, just as if it were local.

So easy... it must be a Mac!