Smart Computing Article - Communication Breakdown

August 2006 • Vol.10 Issue 5 Add To My Personal Library Networks are the main reason that nearly every business has an IT department and for good reason. Networks are tricky to set up and even more difficult to secure. They stall out or work in fits and start for seemingly no reason. It’s all worth the effort, though, when you’re able to stream multimedia files to a multitude of devices throughout your home, share files easily among computers, and give all of your computers access to the same broadband Internet connection. Whether you’re setting up a home network for the first time or are trying to troubleshoot problems with your existing network, this guide, along with a willingness to tweak some settings, should get everything on track. I have two computers located near one another; I connected them using a single Ethernet cable, but they are not networked. It’s tempting to try to network a couple of computers by linking them with a cable, but this isn’t the most efficient method. If you opt to go this route, you’ll need a special kind of Ethernet cable called a crossover cable such as the 7-foot-long Geek Squad Cat-6 Crossover Cable (22.99; ). You’ll also need to assign static IP (Internet Protocol) addresses to each computer, which we’ll discuss later in the article. In addition, you’ll need to install two NICs (network interface cards; available for as little as $10 and up to $199) in at least one of the computers on the