Computer Home Network » Home Networking

Home Networking in the Digital Age

admin — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 20:55:01 +0000

When computers first became available to the general public, it was rare for any home to have more than one unit, let alone a network of computers. But as modern technology became cheaper, more accessible and within the reach of everyone, tech-savvy homes are now linking up their laptops and plugging in their PCs into home networks.

What is a home network?

A home network is simply a method of allowing computers to communicate with one another. If you have two or more computers in your home, a network can let them share:

· Files and documents

· An Internet connection

· Printers, print servers and scanners

· Stereos, TVs and game systems

· CD burners

To set up a home network, you’ll need a few basic components including more than one computer, hardware such as a router and software, either built in to the operating system or as a separate application, to co-ordinate the exchange of information. You will also need a ‘path’ for the information to follow from one computer to another. This is usually supplied via a WiFi system. The two most popular home network types are wireless and Ethernet networks. In both of these types, the router does most of the work by directing the traffic between the connected devices. By connecting a router to your dial-up, DSL or cable modem, you can also allow multiple computers to share one connection to the Internet.

Any risks?

With any network, there are always risks. If all of your computers are connected to the same network, a virus uploaded onto one computer will infect all the other computers linked to the same system. This is why it is imperative that you install effective firewalls and anti-virus software into your network to protect your system from outside attacks.

Most routers combine wireless and Ethernet technology and also include a hardware firewall already built into the system, but you can increase your security by adding your own software protection. Software firewalls installed onto your computers block all incoming information by default and prompt you for permission to allow the information to pass. In this way, a software firewall can learn which types of information you want to allow into your network. It is advisable to regularly update your firewalls and anti-virus protection to keep hackers and malicious users at bay.

Ethernet and wireless networks each have advantages and disadvantages. Wired networks provide users with plenty of security and the ability to move lots of data very quickly. They are faster than wireless networks, and very affordable. However, with wired networks, the clue is in the name – you will have cables linking your network so if you’re not happy about a house full of cables to connect your system, a wireless WiFi network may be a better and more user friendly option. The system itself may be slower, particularly if a computer is further away from the main router, but you do cut down the amount of hardware and cables needed to create the network in the first place.

Wireless networks are more susceptible to interference in the radio waves due to walls and distance of networked computers from the wireless router, but do allow you the freedom to utilise the system anywhere in the house (or even outside in the garden). Wireless networks are by far the most popular home networking system, despite some drawbacks and as the technology improves and routers become more powerful, are becoming the networking option of choice for the majority of home users.

By: Alison Brundle

How to Set Up Your Home Network

admin — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 23:08:13 +0000

If you have multiple gadgets you use at home and would like to get them connected to increase their productivity and efficiency, what are the options you have? There are many questions which pop up- how to set up a home network? Is it safe? Is it expensive? Can home networking be maintained hassle free? Would I be able to fix any networking issue which arises in future? Home Networking allows you to connect all your computers to the Internet through a single connection. Are you planning to build or rebuild an existing home network? It doesn’t have to be tough or complicated, if you use our product.

A home network is a residential local area network used for communication between digital devices deployed at home such as personal computers, printers etc. Most of the computers have inbuilt networking capabilities. A home network allows connecting and sharing various digital devices at home. You can set up a home network with or without internet access using various combination’s of computer hardware and software.

With the advancement in technology, it has become extremely convenient to set up home networking which allows you to connect and share the digital devices you use at home and be in full control of your network. The available software allows you not only to add new devices to your home network but also allows you troubleshoot networking issues and also learn how to avoid such issues in future. It also makes your home networking safe by prohibiting unauthorised access to your files and documents stored on your computer.

Our Software product is focused on creating, managing, and securing everything related to your home network, devices, and computers. The software comes with an interactive tool which helps you set up your home networking by guiding you through a step by step process. The software wizard helps you to set up a home networking allowing you to share your printers, your files, your internet connection as well as all your other devices across all of your different computers. It will not only help you set up your home network but at the same time help you secure it. To make things simple, the software comes along with step by step videos to do it all by yourself in a few minutes. It works for both PCs and Macs allowing you to set up your home network irrespective of the computer you use.

How many times have you found yourself in a situation where you wished you could access the other computer at home to retrieve a file or use a printer attached to the other PC, play multi-player computer games, or most importantly share your broadband Internet access with the other PC ? You can do all this and more by setting up home networking. You can share Internet access or files and documents with everyone in your house, when you set up a fast and easy home networking. It helps you to unlock the true power of your computer.

By: Amaan Goyal

Windows 7 a Review You Will Understand

admin — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 13:08:39 +0000

The big question is… should we embrace or avoid Windows 7? This is the question I am going examine in this entry and I hope that I will be able to help you make an informed choice about whether to adopt Windows 7.

After the nightmare experience so many people had with Windows Vista on it’s release; it is no surprise that people have been waiting for positive reviews before trying Windows 7. So let’s get cracking and have a look at three of the features of Windows 7 that have really impressed me.

1. Improved Speed over Windows Vista

One of the big problems experienced with Vista was the speed at which it performed; so this was one of the big challenges that the people at Microsoft had to address. They did this by redesigning how Windows 7 displays graphics to your monitor.

Windows 7 can not start to display things before all the background information is worked out. So you do not get that feeling that your computer is freezing. This change has reduced the wait time for applications to load, save and respond to users’ requests. How this was achieved is not important, what is however important is the fact that this feature really improves usability in Windows 7 over Windows Vista.

2. Home Networking & Media

It is no longer the case that people just use a network in the office, therefore Microsoft have really catered for the home network in Windows 7. The ease at which you can now share your files between computers in your network will surprise you. It is also so much easier to connect printers to your home network and also to connect to your home Wi-Fi connection.

There are loads of new features in Windows 7 to make it easier to share all your MP3s, Videos and TV shows throughout your house by using your home network in Windows 7. You can view music or recorded TV shows from remote computer and play them across the home network. If you want to watch a recorded TV show, you can easily transfer it to your laptop so that you can watch it on the laptop at another time.

3. Not So Many Annoying Pop-ups

One of the things that really annoyed me about Windows Vista was the fact that when I wanted to do anything with my computer I got a pop-up box asking me if I was sure I wanted to do it; also if an application was looking to do something we got the same pop-up. These constant pop-ups became really quite frustrating. In Windows 7, Microsoft have introduced a setting where you can adjust the settings to reduce or switch off these annoying little pop-up boxes.

My experiences with Windows 7 are all positive and I will be suggesting to my clients based in Dublin to consider installing Windows 7 on new PCs. If you would like to talk to someone in iPing about Windows 7 or your IT support in Dublin please drop us a LINE

By: Mark Z Kelly

Computer Networking – How to Network Your Home Computers

admin — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 22:41:14 +0000

How many computers do you have at home? How many of those are in use? Do you have a number of computer users as well? One in the study, couple in the kid’s room, one for the kitchen, if you have more than two computers and computer users in your home then you may try networking all the computers.

What are the benefits of home networking?

• If connected to a network, files can be sent back and forth by each computer.

• You can play music and video files from another computer.

• You can access the printer and the scanner that is connected to one computer from any other computer that is within the network.

• You can avail of the best features of the computer with highest configuration.

• If one computer in the network serves as a server, then you can store important files as back up in the server.

• You can share one Internet account to reap its benefits from different computers at the same time.

• Imagine playing Age of Empires or racing cars with real opponents at different computers in the house!

Yes, networking allows you to have multi-player games.

So how do you get home networking?

Networking can be done by using a wireless networking connection or by an Ethernet cable. All you need for Ethernet networking are:

- Number of networking cables
- Networking cards
- A router

Once you have these, follow the following steps.

- Select the computers that you want to be in the network
- Install a networking card in each
- Connect a cable to each which will in turn be connected to the router
- The router will then be connected to the server
- The router will then be connected to the modem machine in order to enable internet access to all the machines
- Once the hardware connections are in place, set up internet in each computer by configuring the Local Area Network (LAN) settings
- Finally use the router manual to access the password and set up internet connection on each computer through the router

So what are the precautions that you need to take while connecting your home computers in a network?

First and foremost you need to realize that whatever data you have in each computer will be accessible by everybody.

So start by defining the rights to each drive and folder of your respective computers. Since people other than family members who sit on someone’s computer can also access the information in other computers, ideally only ‘read’ right should be given to folders and drives with sensitive information, so that someone else cannot copy, edit or delete such information.

You can even deny ‘read’ rights to folders if need be. Since you are connecting to the internet through your network, you must install a firewall for maximum security. Install anti-virus software on each computer.

Connecting home computers in a network is a good idea, helps in staying connected and also make full utilization of the facilities available in each computer. With a little bit of precaution, networking can only be fun!

By: Gregg Hall

Home Networking – File Sharing Made Easier

admin — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 05:06:21 +0000

There is much file sharing going on via the web and email as you are probably aware. After building your home network, you have a lot of options as to what you can do with it. One thing which many people like often to do is to share files between different computers on the network without having to use old-school methods like CDs or even floppies which are no longer considered to be that ideal.

Something common with most email providers is that most may have limits on the size of email attachments that you can be able to send to and back using their email service therefore making the sharing of large files difficult. Your email connection may also be far slower than the speeds of your home network. This therefore may prompt you to set up your own home networking system in order to make file sharing much easier and convenient. On a Windows based home network, file sharing is a snap; and it’s not much harder to set up for Linux.

Here are two ways to get started: If one of your computers has an adapter to share an internet connection, this computer is typically acting as a hub for your home network. In many cases, this computer also can do double duty as a file server. It can do this via FTP or Windows Shares.

FTP has been around for a long time now. it is one of the most efficient means of copying files from one computer to another over a network. One computer must act as the FTP server, another as an FTP client. Pretty much common is the fact that any web server already has FTP server software installed. For the client, you can use any number of different FTP client programs available online; many are free. You can also use the FTP command, built in to your command line program on Windows or Linux.

On Windows, click Start/Run from your menu and type cmd into the box. Type ftp and then ? The command prompt comes up with a list of options. These options are for sending and receiving from and to different computers. You can also use File Shares. By default, Simple File Sharing is enabled on Windows XP (Home Edition) systems. To turn this on or off, double click the My Computer icon on your desktop and select Folder Options from the Tools menu. Click on the View tab and change the setting for Use Simple File Sharing.

You can set the level of security you want for your file sharing. You can make files Read Only to keep people from inadvertently deleting them. You will need to allow Write access to let others transfer files to the system however. If you want Read and Write access, you’ll have to allow Full Control. Right click on a folder and select Sharing and Security to set the level of security you want.

It can be a little time consuming, at least to set up. However, if file sharing is something which you will be doing often on your home network, you’ll save a lot of time in the long run by setting up file sharing now while you still have the time with little or no stress.

By: Joseph Nyamache

Setting Up a Home Networking System

admin — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 02:04:34 +0000

Since Microsoft released Windows for Workgroups, networking has become quite easy and very commonplace for most home computer users. Everything that is needed to set up a home network is built right into the computer’s operating system which was installed in the machine. All you have to do is turn it on and set it up. If you happen to have Windows 95/98 setting up a network is a snap!

A home network is, simply put, a made up of set of hardware and also a set of software that will allow computers to communicate with each other. A home network enable File sharing or using the same printer or other input and outputs instead of buying one for each available computer.

A home network functions in almost the exact same way as that used by a private businesses when a LAN or Local Area Network is created. Designations, or IP addresses, as well as some that are catchy phrases that humans will remember are called host names and they know who everyone is as well as where everything is. Let’s say that 10.1.1.5 or Computer Jack sends a file to 10.1.1.6 or Computer Jill. The hardware and software must cooperate with each other in order to know where and how to send the file from Jack to Jill.

This idea is much the same as that used by the post office. There is an address associated with each home. A letter that is sent from one home is routed to another by using that address. Putting the return address on the letter is very important so the person knows where to respond. Also, if the letter gets lost, it will be sent back to the return address. If there is no return address it just goes to the dead letter office. Home computer networks work in much the same way.

The routing data is also known as ‘an envelope’. This surrounds the data or the words on the letter. A home network comes in two main types: cabled and wireless. In a cabled network different wire bundles which are known as Ethernet cables with connectors on each end plug into either a network interface card, or NIC, in the printer, fax, computer or into a switch/router. Hubs or switches are simplified devices that allow physical connections between the components of a network.

A wireless network operates in much the same way. The main difference is that there is no need for cables. Small devices known as transceivers send and retrieve information by radio signals. Let’s say that you want two computers within a home network to both be able to print on the same printer. Where would you even start to do something like that? You can make this happen in two possible ways. In one set up, the printer is physically attached to one of the computers. The alternate set up connects the printer to the network and not to any individual computer;

With this first arrangement, the printer is called local, but shareable. It is possible to allow a remote computer to print to the locally attached device. Computer-Jack then just shares the printer by using software of the hosting system, Computer Jill. In most typical cases nowadays, the printer has its own NIC. It is then attached to a router or switch by way of Ethernet cables or a wireless transceiver. Then each computer on the network is able to ’see’ the printer as a device that the computer can use.

Scanners, fax machines and other computers operate in pretty much the same way. Every device receives an address and a name. Software on the device allows it to be configured so that its function is accessible to multiple computers on the same network.

By: Joseph Nyamache

Secure Your Home Wireless Network And Keep Hackers Out

admin — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 16:44:44 +0000

One of the most important, yet under-implemented features of any home wireless network is security. Many people worry only about file sharing and network printing. But many people underestimate the need for security or simply do not understand it. Security is important because unlike conventional wired networks, wireless signals are transmitted across a broader spectrum and thus can be easily picked up.

With the ever growing threat of identity theft you want to take the steps necessary to secure your home wireless network. There are some minor threats and major threats to your personal information. On the minor side an intruder may easily connect to your unsecured wireless network and use it for free internet access. This is called piggybacking. These are minor threats to your privacy.

A major threat is a hacker who is looking to attack your network and hack into it and access your files and personal data. Once they have this they can easily start stealing your identity or selling it to someone who will.

Wireless security can easily be implemented by following a few guidelines. One of the most important features is MAC address filtering. Each computer has a unique MAC address. In your network configuration you enter the MAC addresses of your PCs and laptops. Any other computer that is not specified in your network will be blocked from accessing it.

Another important network security feature is disabling the broadcast of the SSID, or name of your network. It is best to refer to the manufacturer’s documentation for specifics. Most of the required security features are built in the wireless router and this is the first point that needs to be secured. Many of the security settings are turned off by default. Make sure you turn them on for best security.

You can secure and manage your network yourself if you have the time or you can buy a home networking software package that does it for you automatically. There are some good programs out there for under $30 that will secure and repair your home network.

By: Wallace Renckers