network advice 2

I would suggest getting yourself a router. There are a lot of low cost routers for sale from a lot of solid vendors including, but not limited to dlink, linksys and smc.

You can just put one broadband connection to the router, and then put the ethernet connections from the PC'S to the router and have the router assign IP's dynamically or you can setup static IP's internally.

Either way it's fairly simple and pretty straight forward.

I prefer routers to Internetn connection sharing because of the added security that routers provide with keeping services off and using NAT to hide the internal PC's.

Good luck!

some sites:-


There are a number of options, but best (if you have a broadband connection) is probably a router, NIC for each machine and straight through Cat5 cable to connect each machine to router. Router should match your internet connection (eg, cable modem ethernet router for cable modem with ethernet connection) & your ISP should tell you cable to connect to router (if already connected to PC, will be same).

If your internet connection is dial-up in one of the PCs, you will only need either a hub or (preferably) a switch, rather than router - rest the same. Assuming machine with connection is win98SE or later, it will have ICS (Internet connection software) included - so you can use that to share the connection.

HTH.

Thanks - I'll have a look at the solutions. Good sites Wolluf.

Check this site for some good reviews, Sweevo.


Cheers!

A lot of this network gear was on sale at christmas time. Christmas is often a good time to buy computers and computer realted things. Look for some deals where you can buy both the network hardware and the cable together.

Of course it is possible to go wireless now, but it runs just a little slower. Wireless hardware appears to cost more, but you have to realize there are no cables to buy. I have never tried wireless networking, so I can not comment on that.

Linksys makes a lot of switches and routers. I use a Linksys router with a 4 port switch and it works for what I want to do. If the computers are close together say in adjacent rooms or all on the same floor they can be wired together in a closet or something. They also make network wall sockets if you want to wire your house professionally.

If you do not like my post feel free to point out your opinion or my errors.