It is amazing how simple it is to establish a wireless home network in your home or office. I actually believe it is easier to set up a wireless network than it is to get the components out of those hard plastic cases.
However, you need to do some planning up front. The time spent in assessing your networking needs, do a little research about what is available to meet those needs and shop for the best values for the components you need will save you time and aggravation as you set it up.
Here is a list of items you may want to consider before you head off to the ‘gadget’ store:
What kind of computers will you be connecting to the network? Do you have PC’s or Macs…or both?
Will the network be a hybrid mixed users of wireless and hard wired computers?
What wireless standard will you be installing? (See my article. “What Do I Need to Know about Choosing the Right Wireless Network?” for more about standards)
Computer Adapters – How will you be connecting each computer to the wireless network? Internal PC adapter? USB device? PC or PCMCIA Card?
Are you going to want to access a printer on the network? How many? How is the printer connected today? Does the printer need to be attached to a computer to be accessed or will you provide direct network access through a print server for your users?
What will be your Internet access point? Do you have a broadband (DSL/Cable modem) connection? Are you using dial-up? Is the Internet connection shared from a single computer or do you incorporate the use of a router?
How much money do you have budgeted for building the network?
Think about the future use of your network for a couple of minutes. Do you plan on running an entertainment media server for accessing MP3 music files, streaming video, downloading movies or television shows? What about moving to Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) telephone services to replace land-line services?
How will you secure your network? What steps do you need to take to make sure that your network prevents unauthorized access from your Internet connection, your file systems and keeping snoops (or worse!) out of your computers?
By taking a few minutes to write down these questions into categories, you can quickly organize your thoughts into question and answers. This will help you determine the type of components you will need to build what I call a ‘Three-S’ wireless network from the very start: Secure, Stable and Safe
By: Jeff Runyon
Posts Tagged ‘Single Computer’
Prepare a Plan For Your Home’s Wireless Network
March 11th, 2010Troubleshooting Two Common Network Card Driver Problems
November 29th, 2009
One, your PC is slowing down after installing network adapter drivers. When you finish the installation of your net card driver and restart the PC, you find the boot up is markedly slower than before. Firstly, ensure that you have set up your compatible driver properly.
Commonly, it is in gear that the startup becomes much slower than before after a single computer experiences a network configuration, for the system will detect the adapter one more time. Surely, if the system freezes up for a long time on start, you should scrutinize the machine for other failures.
Besides, if you haven’t specified an IP address for your net card, your system will search one for it automatically on startup, which will take about 10 seconds. Even though your NIC is not in use at present, you’d better assign an IP address to it, and simply disable this card in the BIOS so as to boost the computer’s boot up.
Network card itself is less likely to have problems. The failures usually come from its drivers or the mismatch of transmission rate between the computer and the adapter, for these you can unload the driver and then readjust the correct network adapter parameter.
Two, your net card driver is broken while cleaning virus or because of shutting down the computer improperly.
If your network adapter programs are damaged and the adapter can not work, the network is unreachable and the net card light is on, go to the Device Manager (Start / Control Panel / System / Hardware / Device Manager) you will find a yellow exclamatory mark beside the Network adapters, which indicates that your net card driver is working irregularly, you need to unload and reinstall it.
By: Molly Smith
Home Network How To – What Type Should I Use?
November 2nd, 2009
When I first started in computers, one of the most confusing things that I ran across was how to set up a home network. The differences between hubs, routers, Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) and cabling were a mystery to me. But after much trial and error and built-up experience I managed to figure a few things out and some of that information I will share with you now.
There are two basic types of networks that I’m going to talk about in this article first being the infamous ICS or Internet Connection Sharing. ICS is usually implemented by connecting multiple computers through the hub to a single computer. Let’s say we have three computers, Computer A, Computer B and Computer C. Computer A has enjoyed a high speed Internet connection and after a while, Computer B and C want to get in on the action! In order to implement ICS, we would have to connect all three computers to a hub.
A hub is basically a switch that allows any computer hooked up to it to communicate with any other computer hooked up to the hub. So with all three computers hooked up to it, we would set the network up on the computers to use ICS. Computers B and C would be told that they’re going to connect to the Internet through another computer that has a high-speed Internet connection. While Computer A would be configured to enjoy its high-speed connection as it did before.
Configured like this, Computers B and C would enjoy a relatively fast connection to the Internet as would Computer A. The problem here starts when all three computers are accessing the Internet at the same time. Computers B and C would enjoy a relatively fast connection to the Internet while Computer A would suffer some moderate slowdowns because it not only has to handle its own traffic but the traffic of the other two computers as well. The user on Computer A is going to get quite upset if Computers B and C decide to download files at the same time. Because downloading a file is such a data intensive process, demanding large amounts of data be transferred from the Internet as fast as possible, Computers A may suffer some severe speed problems because of the demand being put on it from the other two computers.
Unfortunately because of the fact that the hub does not have built-in firewall or any other such software that can protect the computers behind the hub Computers A must also be running Windows firewall in the background which provides an additional performance hit.
So although the ICS is the cheapest way to go, it is definitely not the speediest way to go. In fact, to be honest, I would only follow this route if the users of Computers B and C had something against the user of Computer A and want to get even!
The second type of setup that I’m going to talk about it is the router based set up. Nice thing about the router is that most routers are very intelligent. They have built-in firewalls, parental controls, can block sites or even allow users to have access to your network from the outside if they know the proper passwords and/or ports to connect through. No additional software is required that might add a performance hit and all three computers get configured the same way.
To hook up or router you simply plug a cable from your Internet connection into the router then plug the three computers into the router as well. When you set up your computers you tell networking software that all three will computers have direct access to the Internet. There is some setup involved with router as is usual with any complicated piece of hardware but usually it is very painless and if you follow the instructions, quite easy!
The nice thing about router set up is that once it is set, up all three computers enjoy the same speed advantages of being on a high-speed Internet. No one computer is impacted by the fact that someone else is downloading a file. In fact, all three can download a file at the same time and still enjoy impressive speed while doing so! Face it guys this is the network that you want to set up if your wife is on Computer A!
Routers tend to be a little more expensive than hubs but the advantages of having them a part your network far outweigh any price difference. So if you must go with ICS, then do so with pride! But personally, I would recommend spending the extra money to go the “router route”!
By: Don Willson
