Most modern homes have any number of computers, printers, faxes, music systems and devices. These are increasingly being integrated so that each device can ‘talk’ to all the others and interact with them. While many of the possibilities are still being explored, the best place to start for the average person is with a home computer network.
Basically, if you have more than one computer in your house you can connect them, with ethernet cables or wirelessly, so that you can share your internet connection, share files and operate peripherals such as printers from any terminal.
As well as more practical advantages, having a home network is also ideal for leisure activities like gaming. As the technology advances, it is now becoming possible to hook networks up to gaming consoles, music speakers and even televisions.
However, for the purpose of this article we will just start with the basics. The two main choices when setting up a home network are a cable network or a wireless network. These are fairly self explanatory. Wireless networks are increasingly becoming the norm these days and are very handy if you have a notebook so you can connect from...