Setting Up A Home Network
And Establishing Email Isolation

Typically, we find many households have a "main" computer, a laptop computer and an "older" computer that they replaced when they bought their "main" computer. Sometimes there will be a computer in the kid's room and sometimes one of the spouses will have their own computer.

Once there is more than one computer in the household, the next problem that comes up is to decide which computer gets to be connected to the internet. And, that is usually the first time that "networking" starts to be discussed.

Today, it is very easy to set up a small, home, network so that all the household computers can share the internet and also have their own Email reception.

And, of course, if there is only one printer, then a discussion begins about which computer will have the printer connected.

A home network allows all the computers to 1) have simultaneous access to the network - or not, depending on what folks want, 2) have access to the files on each of the other computers - or not, depending on what folks want, 3) have their own Email - or not, depending on what folks want, 4) have access to a common printer - or not, depending on what folks want.

Basic Hardware

The Router

A "router" is the heart of most home networks. In fact, most folks are now choosing a wireless router so that they can take a laptop anywhere in the house and still have access to all the rest of the computer network.

I prefer and currently recommend to our clients, the Linksys Wireless-G Broadband Router.

Also on the back of the router are (4) additional ports where four computers or computer devices can be hard-wired (connected) to the router.

And, of course, up to 256 other wireless computers or computer devices can also connect to the router - all simultaneously.

A computer "device" might be a printer or hard drive or video camera. All such devices require a interconnecting piece of hardware called a "network server" in order to complete the physical connection. such a server is usually a small box about the size of a pack of cigarettes. Sometimes the "server" is built into the device. for example, many printers, video cameras and hard drives have the server built-in. Of course, if the server is built-in, the device will cost a bit more when you buy it.

If all of your computers are able to be hard-wired, you can connect up to (4) computers. Or, (3) computers and (1) printer. Or, (2) computers, (1) video camera, and (1) printer.

The Hub

If you want to connect more than (4) wired devices, one of the (4) ports can be used to connect a "networking hub" to the router. Network hubs come with various numbers of ports - 4, 8, 16, 24, etc, etc.

You might want to use a hub if you have several computers and several printers that are all wired.

Or, you could attach wireless "servers" to some of those devices and let each device connect "wirelessly" to the router.

The variations and possibilities are endless.
 

The Ethernet Powerline Adapter

There may be times where you need to connect a computer or computer device and it is located too far away to be within the wireless range - and, because of where it is located, it would be difficult to run a cable to connect it. What to do?

Easy, use a connecting device called a Powerline Ethernet Adapter.

Microsoft actually makes it fairly easy to get it all working together. Windows XP Pro and the new Vista operating systems will auto-detect such networks and pretty much auto-configure themselves. Now, I don't want to make it sound too easy. There can sometimes be some catchy aspects to it all that might need a little professional help. But, I think it is fair to say that it is not nearly as difficult as many folks think it is.

An Example

In my case, I have two "main" workstations (mine and my wife's), a third computer dedicated to doing nothing but handling Email activity (more on that later) and a fourth computer that operates the various CCTV video security cameras that watch our premises, a fifth computer in my workshop and a laptop computer. Plus I have a network hard drive that records video clips from the security cameras. The network hard drive is located in a remote part of the facilities so if a break-in occurs, it is unlikely that the robbers would even know it exists, let alone be able to find it.

I also have four different printers that are connected to the network and accessible to all of the computers.

The "Email computer" handles most of our "business" Email activity. That computer is isolated from the rest of the network (by setting the network permissions) so that if it ever gets virus infected, the infection cannot get out to infect any other computers on the network.

Since the Email computer, the CCTV Video-camera computer, and my main workstation are all located within a few feet of each other, I use a KVM Switch to be able to switch back and forth between them using only one Keyboard, Monitor and Mouse (KVM - Keyboard, Video, Mouse). At the tap of a hot-key on the keyboard, I can switch between those three computers.

My wife's computer sits on the other side of the office and she has her own, personal, Email that she receives and sends from it. She also does all of her photo-restoration work on it - a lot of heavy-duty Photoshop activity! While I worry a bit about virus infection on her computer, at least if it gets infected, the infection will not get out to the rest of the network due to the way the "permissions" on the network are set up.

Both my main workstation and my wife's main workstation are liquid cooled to prevent over heating in the warm summer months. And both of those main workstations are heavily backed up using the concepts described in our ColorBAT Backup Concepts

Our in-house network allows all the computers to have instant access to our broadband (cable) internet. Additionally, we have Vonage telephone service. Vonage is a "voice-over-IP" telephone service that has - for us - totally replaced our "old fashioned" land-line service.