Creating a Personal Network

Hello,

I am looking into creating a small network at home and would like any advice that anyone would like to share.

First of all, I have an internal ADSL modem in one of my PCs and I would like to be able to share the connection to my other computers. At first I was looking to buy a switch as opposed to a hub for performance reasons. Please correct me if I'm wrong but there shouldn't be any issues with creating a small network with a switch, should there?

I would also like to incorporate wireless technolgy for my laptop so I could work from others rooms. What is ther best way to do this with my connection. I don't think I need a router as my connection is within my one computer (Which does not have a wireless NIC)

Can I connect a switch to a wireless switch(if there is such a thing) or to a wireless router? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

You are firstly correct that a switch would be a good idea. These perform better than hubs, as every individual user has complete bandwidth all of the time, instead of where in a hub the bandwidth is shared between the active users. A switch also enables you to enable full duplex, which means clients can send and receive data at the same time.

To share your Internet connection, you can use something built-in to Windows called Internet Connection Sharing. This is available in all versions of Windows from 98 upwards. In XP, you can just right-click the connection select Properties, select the Advanced tab and enable ICS. On other versions of Windows, you may need to install it from the Add / Remove Windows Components.

To allow wireless connections, you need to buy a wireless access point and plug it into one of the ports on your switch. You could buy just one wireless router as this would allow wireless and wired connections (probably) and just disable the router part of it (because you'll be using your computer). This may work out cheaper than buying a wireless access point and a switch.

Thanks for the reply edwinbrains!

No problem - I hope you get your network setup OK

If you go for the wireless router, the Linksys Wireless-G is nice and will give you four wired connections as well.