If you’re looking to put together a local area network, creating a plan can save both time and money especially if you ever know you’re going to expand your home network in the future.
The purpose of writing out a plan is to realize what you actually need from your network, after all there are so many more things available than just having computers that connect to the internet.
This includes WiFi, cables, or even both
Although you may only use wired connections today, will you need WiFi in the future?
Almost everyone will at some stage, and the difference in prices between a cabled and Wireless router is very small, and most if not all wireless routers still have a 5 port wired hub built into them and this means you can use both wired and wireless appliances.
The whole reason most people need to have a home network setup is to share an internet connection, in this case it’s imperative that the security of each computer and the router is up to date and working, this includes Wireless Security, Router Security & each computer must have a firewall, anti-spyware and a firewall.
Sharing your hard drive on your network is easy or have a special computer, network attached hard drives are easy to setup and they most of the time have sizes from 500gb to 2tb. Some even have a wireless option built in.
The speed of your home network can be a major factor if you transfer big files, truth be told a cabled network will always be faster than wireless, as a rule of thumb use wired if you can and wifi where you need it.
One huge mistake made when many of us need to setup a home network is thinking about future expansions to the network, saving money today will just leave you spending more tomorrow, work within your budget but be realistic, setup the network that suits your needs and and budget.
By: Alex Smith
Archive for September, 2009
How Do You Setup a Network?
September 25th, 2009Networking Your Home or Small Business is Fairly Inexpensive
September 24th, 2009If you have as few as two computers in your home, you can reap a number of benefits by connecting them with a network cable and two NICs (Network Interface Cards). Equally, if you run a small business from your house, and have maybe five or six systems, benefits can be seen by networking.
One of the main advantages of a small home network is that it allows each computer to share all the resources. For example, if you print from a program running on one computer to a printer attached to the other computer, you won’t need to buy two printers. Importantly, you will also be able to save precious disk space by keeping programs and data on one computer and running them from all machines.
You can also take advantage of special software that exploits the fact that your computers are connected. This ranges from mainstream productivity software to that productivity killer: networked gaming.
There are a number of ways in which to connect two or more computers into a network, but most fall into either the peer networking or server networking category.
Server based networks have one or more server computers dedicated to providing shared resources to a group of network client computers. The servers are generally highly specified and generally also more reliable than the average computer. They need to be, because people using the client computers have to logon to the network before they can access the server’s resources. Therefore, the server must be running all the time in a typical environment.
Although there are situations in which a home network should follow the server based model, it is actually overkill for most home networks.
The alternative to a server based network is peer networking. Here, each computer functions as a server sharing its disks and printers, and as a client using the resources on other computers. Generally, peer networks are easier to setup than server based networks.
With network cards and the network software that ships with Windows XP, you can share hard disks, directories, files, programs, email and printers.
Network Hardware
The best way to connect two computers in a peer network is via a pair of network cards and a piece of cable. The two NICs will be fitted into a free PCI expansion slot. Windows XP will probably have the drivers and automatically install them for you when it detects the new hardware, otherwise you may need to provide the drivers.
Cables
With the cards fitted and the correct drivers installed you then need to connect the NICs with the cable. There are many different network cables available but the de facto standard to which most people adhere is Ethernet. And, there is quite a variety within the Ethernet category itself. The only real decision you have to make is between Thin Ethernet and Twisted Pair or TP.
For a basic two computer network the cheapest option is Thin Ethernet – it offers long cable runs and doesn’t require a hub. Unfortunately, Thin Ethernet chains computers together in series and is susceptible to breaks in the cable. So, if one section breaks, none of the computers on the network will be able to communicate with each other.
TP, in comparison, generally uses a star arrangement with each computer individually cabled to the hub. This is a lot more reliable because a failure in the cable to one computer doesn’t affect the other computers. It’s an academic point if you have only two computers, but as soon as you have three or more at home, TP automatically becomes a lot more reliable than Thin Ethernet.
Hubs
Hubs come in all shapes and sizes. More sophisticated hubs, known as switches, are used in very large, busy networks, while managed hubs are designed to work with network management software for large networks. Most home networks requires neither switches nor managed hubs – an inexpensive 4-port or 8-port hub should suffice. Ensure that the hubs and NIC cards support 10/100 Mbps which is the standard these days.
Up and Running
When your network is up and running, what should you use it for? Well, it’s up to you, but here are some typical uses which can enhance your home computing experience.
Firstly, you can use it to share files. Do you have data that you and another family member want to access from your own computer? Now you don’t have to copy them from one machine to the other with flash disks.
Now a single printer can be used by each computer saving the need to buy two or more printers for each user.
Other resources can also be shared, such as modems and ADSL connections. The whole family can surf the Internet simultaneously. Now what are you waiting for?
By: Sandra Prior
Is your home network as safe as it could be?
September 24th, 2009Go ahead….go back and read that again…I’ll wait. That’s right, I said Invisible.
Lets say that you are walking down the street and you see an “Unsavory Character” coming towards you. Chances are, if he doesn’t see you, nothing bad will happen. The same idea applies to computers. Your computer is on the same “Street” ( the Internet ) as the hacker. If he has no idea your computer is there, he wont bother you.
Your computer communicates with the rest of the computers on the internet by sending information through “ports”. There are over 65,000 ports that your computer has access to at any given moment. Some of these ports are dedicated to certain functions…some are just general and used by many different functions. Everyday, computers across the globe send out billions of requests that are called “pings”. Your computer is programmed to answer these pings with a response that basically says “Im Here”. There are a fair number of these pings that are malicious..sent from the computer of a hacker looking for an unsuspecting victim. If the hacker knows your computer is online, you are at risk. The key to being safe, is to make sure that the hacker never knows your computer exists. In other words…invisible.
The way to make that happen is to make sure that your computer is behind a firewall. A firewall is a controller that keeps track of what communications are being sent back and forth over all 65,000 ports. Which is great but the most important thing it does is NOT respond to another computers ping request. Remember…if the bad guy doesn’t know you are there, you are safe.
Ok, so now we all know that you need to be behind a firewall. Whats does that mean exactly? Well the good news is, you might already be behind one. If your home or office network has more than one computer connected to the internet either through a wifi connection or a hardwired connection you are probably using a piece of hardware called a router. Routers usually have hardware firewalls built into them. If your computer is the only computer connected to the internet in your home or office, there is a good chance you are not “invisible”.
Some of the internet providers ( like Uverse) are supplying Modem/Wifi Router combinations which make network set up and maintenance very easy. Alot of the internet providers just give you a modem.
How do you know if you are protected? Click here to navigate to a website that will try and talk to your computer. If you are behind a firewall, it wont really know your computer is there. If you are not behind a firewall, it will tell you the number of the port it found your computer on.
If you find that you are not behind a firewall, don’t panic. There are lots of places that can help you get set up. If you are a do it yourself-er, do some shopping for wifi routers. If you need help, enlist the help of a reputable computer repair shop picking a router out and/or help installing it. In most cases it will take less than an hour and the hardware will cost under $100….money well spent…for becoming invisible.
By: Gino Orfitelli
