Network Drive Mappings on Macbook Pro

There are several other articles here on Experts Exchange that cover Network Drives.

There are a few ways to do it

1. Connect on Startup
Connect to the network Drive so that the icon appears on the desktop

If you open the System Preferences: Accounts: USERNAME and go to the Login Items Tab. Now drag any of the drive icons from the desktop that you want to mount on startup into the Login Items pane.

Remember to save the Login & Password in the keychain otherwise you'll have to authenticate every time you startup

2. Connect on Demand (Simple)
Using the shortcuts in the Recent Server folder
/Users/USERNAME/Library/Recent Servers,
you can just double click each one to connect as required (or copy the aliases to your desktop or wherever you want them).

3. Connect on Demand (More complex and works ONLY in OSX 10.4 Tiger)
Using a program called Sharepoints Automounter you can create links to the Network Shares
http://www.hornware.com/sharepointsautomounter/
This works for Network Drives that have Guest Access enabled
The links will be visibe Under Network/Servers in any finder window
If username and password is required you'll have to open NetInfo Manager after creating the shares and add some additional information as described here.
http://www.bombich.com/mactips/automount.html  **
** Please note that you'll need to change the URL string from afp:// to smb:// as follows
url==smb://username:password@servername/sharepoint
or
url==smb://Username:Password@Workgroup/servername/sharepoint

4. Applescript Connect
Open the AppleScript editor and paste this into the window

try
  tell application "Finder"
    mount volume "smb://SERVERNAME;username:password@ip_address/sharename"
  end tell
end try

You can repeat the "tell application .. ... end tell" section for each server you want to mount.
Now save the script as an Application.
You can add the application to the Login Items as described in Item 1 above or double click the Application to connect the servers.

5. Using Automator
IN OSX Tiger 10.4 the Automator application has script components to connect to servers
In the Finder Grouping you'll need 2 actions
a. Get Specified Servers .. where you list the server you want to connect to e.g. smb://username:password@ip_address/sharename
b. Connect to Servers .. does what is says
Then you can save the workflow as an Application and either put it on the desktop to click when you want to connect or place the application in the Login Items again as described previously.

PLEASE NOTE.. Items 1, 2, 4, 5 which connect on startup do not guarantee that the drive will stay mounted.  After a period of inactivity Windows can close the connection requiring a reconnect. Therefore keep a link to the Remote Volumes folder to reactivate a connection.
Personally I use option 3 which although more complicated seems to keep the connection alive more reliably.