The way that it used to be, is people generally had one computer in their home. Internet access was based on dial-up modems which were connected directly with a serial cable on the home computer. No Local Area Network was needed. With the advancement of technology and the wide spread adoption of high speed internet connectivity at homes, necessitates that home appliances should be networked to facilitate online access and to also communicate and share information between them.
What I mean when I say home appliances is home computers, next generation game consoles, printers, scanners, network attached storage, etc. All of these “Appliances” need to share information amongst themselves over a network, but also need to have high-speed access to the Internet. To achieve that, you will need to set-up a home network. With a home based network you are technically building a local area network, which can be wired or wireless, that networked devices communicate between inside the home, and also share the same internet connection.
The base of the home network is your broadband router. This is usually a device that lets you setup a wired or a wireless network. You can use Ethernet cables if you’re making a wired network, or use Wi-Fi for wireless. This integrated router provides also the Internet access connectivity.
Once you have your home network setup, you can connect your computers, laptops, Xbox 360, Playstation 3, servers, network storage boxes, etc. After you successfully connect all your devices to the router, you can share and distribute your files over the network, have LAN parties on game consoles, play online video games, and share pictures between computer.
By: Alex D Smith
Posts Tagged ‘Wireless Home Networks’
How Do I Set Up My Wireless Network at Home?
February 2nd, 2010
Wireless home networks are becoming more and more popular these day. The ease of installation and the practicality of being able to surf the net anywhere in the house makes wireless home networks very attractive to internet users. Setting up a wireless home network is quite easy but you need to know some basic things about wireless networks before attempting to start the set up. You can read up more about the wireless networking protocols to help you get a better understanding of wireless networking.
To set up a wireless home network you need to have broadband internet connection with a cable or DSL modem. The common set up at home is usually that of the desk top computer being plugged directly into the modem. In this tutorial we will assume that you have a laptop that you want to connect wirelessly to the PC that is connected to the internet. You need some hardware to make this possible. First you need to have a wireless router. You also need to add a USB wireless network adapter to your desk top PC and a PC card-based network adapter for your laptop computer. For obvious reasons, it is advisable to choose the same vendor for all the additional hardware you buy. Refer to the documentation that comes with your hardware for the installation process.
When you already have all the necessary hardware installed, you can begin the set up. First you need to unplug or turn off the DSL modem then connect the wireless router to the modem. You can check the documentation that came with your hardware for assistance. When you’ve set it up your computer will wirelessly connect to your router. The next step is to configure your wireless router. With Internet Explorer you can go to your router’s configuration page.
Most of the default settings there are rather safe left alone but there are some things that you need to configure. You need to choose a unique wireless network name or SSID, this will be the name of your network. Be sure that no one around that is near you is using the same name. The next step is, if your router requires it, to provide a unique passphrase that it will use to generate some keys. Then the last step to do before you are done with configuring the router is setting your administrative password. Choose a password that is not easy to guess and not too short for security reasons. Be sure to save every setting you’ve configured. The actual steps involved in configuring these settings vary according to the kind of router you have.
The next step is to configure your laptop’s network adapter. It is easy to follow Window’s XP’s on-screen instructions for this one. Right-click the icon for wireless network in your task bar and select “View Available Wireless Networks” in the pop up menu that appears. The Wireless Network Connection window will show and there you will see the name you chose for your wireless network listed. Click Refresh network list in the upper-left corner if you don’t see your network. You will then be prompted to enter a key, this is the key that you wrote down in both the Network key and Confirm network key boxes. Click Connect. You will then see connection progress as it connects to your network. When you’re already connected you can close the Wireless Network Connection window. You’re done, you’ve set up wireless connection.
By: Pinky Mcbanon
