I have searched a long time for an easy method howto handle smb-shares without

• installing an additional samba to osx inbuild samba
• wrecking the inbuild samba itself

Finally i found an application called SharePoints. It is available in two versions

• Preferences Panel
• Standalone .app

A short description from the project page

SharePoints is an application or a preference pane that makes it easy to add and delete share points like in the old Finder. In Mac OS X, by default, you are limited to sharing only what is in your public folder in your home directory. This program makes it easy to share any folder.
In addition SharePoints also brings back users and groups management to Mac OS X as well as easy configuration of AppleFileServer (AFS) and Samba (SMB) Server properties.

Since Version 3.5.4 its available as Universal Binary and like most apps i use for myself its freeware/donationsware.

Try it

Tags: 10.4, afp, cifs, sharepoints, shares, smb