When you start to design your home network, you’ll be immediately faced with a wide array of choices. Many of them have cryptic names and obtuse descriptions. But don’t be put off by all the techno-babble. Make an effort to get familiar with some of the names because they’re associated with options that affect the [...]

Home networking throws novices immediately into a pool of cryptic names and acronyms. Fortunately, home networks are actually fairly easy to build. The first hurdle is little more than becoming familiar with many of those names and letters. Once you learn a little terminology, the rest is often just common sense and carefully following some [...]

Home networks are less expensive and easier to set up than ever. But sometimes the knowledge needed for building them isn’t accompanied by guidelines on how to secure them. In some cases, those guidelines are simply ignored. In either case, that’s a data disaster waiting to happen. It’s certainly possible to be paranoid about security. [...]

Five years ago, a lifetime in the computer world, the decision of whether or not to go wireless would have been made for most home network builders. The cost and complexity, relatively low reliability and lower speed would have made a wireless network valuable only for the hobbyist. Someone who wanted to build one could [...]

One of the reasons many home network builders go through the expense and effort in the first place is to share a printer. If someone splurges several hundred to several thousand dollars for a color laser printer, they don’t want to shell out that money for each computer in the home. Fortunately, sharing a printer [...]

Troubleshooting a network can take myriad forms. But most problems tend to repeat themselves. The first step is usually distinguishing between a software problem and a hardware problem. Unless you have specific reasons to question some other aspect, start troubleshooting by checking the hardware on your network. One of those reasons might be that you’ve [...]

A home network is a computer network you have in your home. True, but not very helpful, eh? So, let’s dig a little deeper. Most people know by now that in order for one computer to share information with another, it’s necessary to connect them together in some way. Those connections and the computers that [...]

A network is like a spider web, the basic reason that the Internet is often called that. It’s a series of lines (called routes) that have intermediate and end points (called nodes) that connect devices together. Those connections and routes are what allow the devices to share, input or output information across the network. Along [...]

Most home network builders will not be satisfied just to trade files among the computers on the home network. That means they will want to connect at least one system to the Internet. In the usual scenario, network builders will want all systems on the home network to have access to the Internet as well. [...]

There are two basic types of home network, cabled (or wired) and wireless. Either type you choose will have some basic equipment in common, though the specific type will vary. First and foremost, in order for any two devices on the network to communicate, some path has to be established. In a cabled network, that’s [...]