Hi, would really appreciate some insight here - I'm planning to connect a mac mini late 2012 as the master and a mac pro late 2009 as the slave. 

1.

For connecting: Do I need a

Gigabit Switch? If so, which one??? Type gigabit switch into amazon....

Gigabit Router? See above....

Or simply, a Cat6 "Gigabit" cable? Are all cat6 cables "Gigabit", and does "crossover" matter?

2. 

Can I still use wifi on the master and slave for basic web browsing?

3.

Is there a video walkthrough of someone setting up the static IP addresses? In system preferences, I configured the ethernet hardware to manual, speed to 1000baseT, but am unsure of the optimal settings for the Duplex/MTU/ABV/EAV Mode settings. 

Is there anyone who does private consults on these setups? I'd be happy to pay someone for a brief phone consult. Thanks so much!