A book-in-progress by David Strom, to be published by Osborne/McGraw Hill this fall.
Most of us have a hard enough time dealing with a single, unconnected personal computer (PC) in our homes. We have trouble staying ahead of our kids' knowledge and making unapproved or inappropriate changes to the PC. We are frustrated when we have an important report to finish some evening for a work-related deadline, but the computer isn't working because of some game or gremlin or downloaded file that was installed by some family member earlier in the day. And we have difficulty keeping the printer stocked with supplies and managing email accounts for every family member.
But these challenges are a piece of cake when compared to putting together a home network, even a small one with just two or three PCs. Until recently, you couldn't even walk into a computer store and buy everything that you needed in one box, even if you knew what you needed or could trust the people in your average retail computer store to tell you honestly what to buy.Ê And the "network in a box" doesn't necessarily help you if one or more of your computers is running an older version of Windows or Macintosh operating systems (OS) that are notorious for their obscure networking support.
Actually, figuring out what to buy is just the beginning. You have to setup a bunch of different components, and make sure they are wired together. And hooking up a network can be just as hard as trying to connect your TV, DVD player and stereo together. Well, maybe it is a little harder, because there are no standard cables and because you have software that takes more to configure that a few simple on-screen menus. And you might have to drill a few holes in your walls. And you have computers with different equipment configurations and different vintages and versions of operating systems. Okay, it is definitely a lot harder.
For those of you new to networking, it can seem overwhelming. You have so many things to consider that you can't necessarily distinguish between the PC, the operating system, the network adapter, the adapter's drivers, the cabling, and the protocols connecting everything up. One of my neighbors spent the better part of eight hours on the phone with Intel's tech support when he started setting up his network, and others have similar stories to tell. If you are running Windows 95, you almost certainly will run into problems. If you have an older PC that doesn't support PCI or USB adapters, ditto. (If you don't know what these are, don't worry: we'll explain them later.) If you have a mixture of Macs and PCs, or PCs running various versions of Windows operating systems, you are in for some extending counseling sessions.
But don't let the enormous challenge of doing it stop you from considering a home network. The benefits are huge, and worth the troubles and hassles you go through. Probably the best reason for a home network is to share a high-speed Internet connection among your entire family, so that everyone can benefit from this "fat pipe" and near instantaneous downloads. The good news is that surviving your first home network doesn't require a great deal of skill, other that patience and perseverance. And that is where this book comes in handy.
My home network started when I got a cable modem for my home computer. Up until that time, my family all shared a single computer, and most of the time I was the only one of us who bothered with using the Internet. That all changed radically, the moment my wife and daughter found out that they could surf the Internet and get email delivered continuously without having to fumble through dial-up commands and wait while the modem did its noisy dance.
All of a sudden, a single shared computer wasn't enough for the family. And once my wife started her own business, and my daughter's homework assignments got more complex, it was clear that maybe even two computers wasn't going to work for my family. Now we needed a network, and a network that would enable us to share the high-speed Internet connection as well as the laser and ink-jet printers we had at home. Suddenly, I was doing end-user computing support for my family, and bringing home more and more gear to hook up and to maintain.
I had all sorts of choices to deal with. I had to decide how to share files and set up the printers among the computers. I had to choose how to cable everything together, and make sure my wife granted ultimate domestic design approval when it came time to run things through the walls and around the rooms. And then there is my cable Internet connection: sharing that wasn't simple either.
Luckily, this is something that I know something about: my background is in corporate end-user support, back in those dark ages when networks were first coming of age and PCs still had 640 kilobytes of memory. (Yes, that is kilobytes -- today you can't even buy memory chips in kilobytes!) I had begun my professional career in computers just as Apple and IBM were getting into the game, and had set up networks big and small for the government and a private insurance company.
Since putting together my own home network I have gone on to set up dozens at friends and neighbors' homes around Long Island, and have helped numerous others through various articles published in technical trade magazines such as Byte.com, Network World, and Computerworld. I've gained lots of experience setting up a wide variety of products in a wide variety of homes. And I've learned that not everything works as intended.
There are many people I know who, after getting their broadband line for one computer, continue to use dial-up for their remaining computers because they can't deal with all the issues surrounding a home network. That is a real shame. In an industry that offers gigabit and terabit speeds for the office, we are still stuck in the slow lane on the home front. This is the real digital divide, and will remain so until the home networking products get better. Or if you know a friendly networking expert that is willing to make house calls.
So that's where this book comes in. Even if you have never opened up your computer, and don't know opening Windows 2000 applications from opening your own living room windows, you'll find in here almost everything you'll need to get started with your first home network, and to survive its quirks and problems. Yes, you are going to have problems along the way, I can promise you that. Networks are full of gremlins, and sometimes figuring out what causes their peculiarities isn't easy. But given that more and more families have multiple PCs in their homes, many of you are going to want to network them and do so successfully. And as the number of Internet-connected households continues to increase, there is a compelling reason to get started.
Writing any book assumes a certain audience and skill level. The goal of this book is to get you running a network with a minimum of fuss and bother, and with just a few inexpensive products. You will have to spend some money to get a network going -- how much will depend on how many computers you are connecting together and how difficult it will be to make those connections. My aim is to give you simple advice and above all be practical, with enough detail to guide you but not to overwhelm you with an encyclopedia.
If you are an ordinary consumer, with little to no PC or professional Information Technology/computing expertise, then this is the right book for you. I don't assume that you can take apart your PC and put it back together in working order, although I will discuss ways you can add various bits and pieces to your existing computer to make it work over a network. If you have never used a network before, or if you use a network at work but don't really know much about how it works, then you have come to the right place. And even if you have some knowledge, then you will still be able to get something out of this book, as you can benefit from my testing and using the various products that I talk about in these pages.
If you have already purchased some networking equipment, but can't seem to make it work, then perhaps this book can help you do some rudimentary troubleshooting, or at least steer you in the right direction to where you can figure out if you have bought the right item or need to get something else that might work for you. There is nothing more frustrating than bringing home a new piece of gear, only to spend hours upon hours fooling around with it, while your family stands around watching you get more and aggravated. Well, you could watch someone like me fooling around with some new network gear, and getting more and aggravated. That is one of the reasons why I wrote this book: to get even with all the vendors of products that almost, but not quite, work.
This book will also help if you are contemplating doing some major renovations on your house and being able to add a network while your home is under construction. After all, the ideal time to add wiring to your walls is when you don't have any walls to deal with, or if you are going to be ripping bigger holes into them than drilling places to run wiring through them. I'll help you figure out where you should locate your PCs, printers, and other devices around your house.
If you already have a bunch of computers, I'll help you figure out which one(s) are worth networking, and which ones aren't. Many books assume that you will rush out and buy the latest PC running the fastest processor and fully loaded. I don't. Indeed, I have designed this book from the beginning to cover a mixture of old and new equipment, which is a challenge because every version of Windows (and to some extent Macintoshes) has a slightly different way of setting up its networking components.
And if you presently own a single PC and are trying to decide whether it is worth it to add a second system to your home, then this book will hopefully inspire you to see what lies ahead for you, and to prepare you for a network in your home. I will also provide tips on how to incorporate these older computers into your home network.
You can be assured that anything that I recommend in these pages is something that I have personally used and tried out in an actual home. Often I have found that something that works in my office, where I have an existing network, won't work quite the same way when I bring it over to a friend's house, where there isn't any network. It isn't that the vendors don't tell you the truth or don't deliver a working product: just that every home is different, and these conditions can make it easy or hard to install your network and keep it running.
Each chapter of this book will focus on a particular task, such as sharing files and printers, and setting up your Internet connection. I assume you are a running a mixture of different computers and operating systems, and I will try to demonstrate the differences among the various versions, including both Windows and Macintoshes, when these differences are important. Given the number of choices involved, I will lay out what are the advantages and disadvantages of each one and give you some simple steps you can take to make the appropriate decision.
Each chapter of this book is divided into five different sections, so you can read the particular ones of interest and follow the discussion when you need it most. Don't feel obligated to read through the entire book if all you are trying to do is get a quick answer to a particular question or solve one problem. The five chapter sections are:
á An introduction to basic concepts,
á Problems and issues relevant to that particular topic,
á Solutions to these problems along with recommended products and how to set them up,
á Troubleshooting tips and other suggestions for when things will go wrong or aren't working the way they are supposed to, and
á Future developments and directions so this book will still be somewhat relevant after it is published.
Chapter 1 looks at home wiring choices. Any network requires some kind of connection, and there are many different types to choose from, including a new series of wireless products that can avoid drilling holes through your walls and running cables around your floors. I'll discuss where you should locate your computers and printers and how to make sure you pick the right kind of cables.
Chapter 2 examines sharing files and introduces the basic networking concepts that are part of your computer's operating system. I'll also discuss what kinds of devices you don't want to share on your home network.
Chapter 3 looks at sharing printers, probably the most obvious device that any home networking user will want to connect to a network. Sharing printers seems obvious, but getting it to work involves picking the right kind of product and setting it up correctly. By the end of this chapter, you should have a working basic home network setup.
Chapter 4 goes into detail about the single biggest motivation for having a home network -- sharing an Internet connection. There are numerous technologies to choose from, and I'll go over how to figure out which one will work best for you and how to migrate from your existing America Online (AOL) or other dial-up Internet access accounts.
Chapter 5 covers email and messaging issues. Email, and its close cousin Instant Messaging (IM), are perhaps two universal Internet applications, and probably the most used service by anyone with a computer these days. I'll review how you can setup multiple email accounts on a single computer, and make use of AOL IM from your new network.
Chapter 6 looks at how you need to protect your network from intruders and others who want to do damage to your computers. I'll cover setting up your first firewall and installing virus protection on all of your computers, and what you do when you find out that someone is trying to break in.
Chapter 7 covers keeping track of your family's surfing habits, and review ways that parents can stay smart and stay informed about the web sites, news groups, chat rooms, and other places around the Internet that their children visit. While this is not exclusive to surviving your home network, it is a natural consequence of putting together all this gear and something that any well-intentioned parent should know.
Finally, chapter 8 looks at some of the more advanced applications that you might want to run over your new home network, including connecting your computer to your music and stereo components, using digital video cameras, and controlling your home lighting and appliances.
This book isn't going to give you lots of details and depth on how to run large-scale networks: there are plenty of other books that delve into those areas. And this isn't a book that is designed so that someone can get into the guts of their network operating system. Nor is it a way to learn how to set up business-critical functions like backing up files and email list servers. Nor is this book going to go into a lot of details for someone who wants to run a web server from a home network.
This isn't a book on how to pick the best sites to surf the Internet, or how to run various Internet applications such as newsreaders and chat programs, or where to download the best shareware programs that do the same. You won't find any tips here on how to use search portals or to track down information over the web (unless of course it is networking information). There are plenty of books around that help with these tasks. And I don't have many tips on how to select an Internet Service Provider, other than choosing the particular high-speed technology offered by that provider.
I also didn't set out to replace the instruction manuals that came with your computer, or any of the products that I recommend here. Granted, many of these manuals have gotten skimpier and thinner over the years, but still my goal is to give you just the right level of detail. If you want something meatier, you can probably find it on the shelf near where you bought this book.
Given that this book covers technologies that are subject to frequent changes, the information contained in here is probably going to be somewhat out of date by the time this is published. Some of the outdated information isn't that important: products come and go, and you shouldn't be too upset if you try to find something that I recommend but it is no longer being made. The important thing is to be able to judge for yourself which products will work for your particular situation, based on the criteria and decisions that I will describe in each chapter.
Having said that, I recommend two different web sites that you can go to for more updated information. I have had nothing to do with the content on either web site, so do take what you find there with several grains of salt.
The first site is called DSLreports.com. It contains lots of information for you to decide on the best provider of Digital Subscriber Line service, one of the major ways that you can obtain a high-speed Internet connection. There are also pointers and links to various home networking technologies on this site as well.
The second web site is called PracticallyNetworked.com, and this site has more information about specific networking technologies, reviews of numerous products, and strategies to get your home wired.
In the interest of full disclosure, you should know something about my background and experience. I have always been interested in networking and computer communications, and enjoyed hooking things together to see if they could communicate with each other. I have had my own business since 1992, working for a wide variety of computer hardware and software vendors. My job is to research, test, and write about their products, and explain how to make them work better to the vendors so that you will have an easier time using them, assuming that the vendors take my advice and fix the things that I find wrong.
Product testing comes naturally to me, and I can't tell you why: I certainly don't have any "Mr. FixIt" type of skills when it comes to getting anything else fixed around the house (as my family can attest). I couldn't fix a leaky faucet or change the oil in my car if my life depended on it. But I can fix almost all common PC problems.
Over the years, I have tested hundreds of different products, including Internet software, network operating systems, desktop and network applications, and various networking devices and communications products. In the past decade, I have written over 1,000 articles for various computer trade magazines. Before starting my own consulting business, I was the founding editor-in-chief of Network Computing magazine for CMP Media, and hired its first staff of editors and production people. I also ran a new product reviews department for Transamerica Occidental Life Insurance Company, where we put in our first Novell network back in the 1980s. Before that, I was an in-house consultant in Information Technology departments for the US Department of Agriculture and the US Congress Office of Technology Assessment, back when PCs were first being created.
This is my second book. My first, written and published in 1998, was called Internet Messaging and written with Marshall T. Rose, one of the inventors of the Internet email protocols. My thanks to Marshall for giving me the courage to write a book on my own.
This book grew out of a series of almost-weekly essays about web and Internet technologies, called Web Informant, that I began writing in the fall of 1995. Some of these essays described my early attempts to setup home networks and document some of the experiences helping friends and neighbors along the way. Other essays have nothing to do with home networking, and cover issues such as Internet privacy, email security, and more technical topics. However, if you like what you read here and want to get a more regular dose, you can subscribe to these essays, which are delivered via email, by going to my web site, http://strom.com/awards.
No book can be written without the help of many people, and I want to first thank my wife Lisa and daughter Maia for all their patience in putting up with my odd working hours and odd working habits in the preparation of this book. And all their patience in putting up with the changes and ups and downs of our own home network as I tried to test one more product and one other configuration as the book took shape.
I also have many thanks to the many family and friends and neighbors who acted as experimental subjects and inadvertent test labs for many of the products and experiences accounted for here. Without their support and situations, this book wouldn't be as useful to you now.