How to set up a home network

Network card types
USB1’s maximum transmission rate is only twelve megabits per second, USB 2 on the other hand has a maximum speed of four hundred and eighty megabits per second), another downside of USB is the fact that it takes more of the processors time than the other connections, so if you have a slow laptop I’d recommend one of the other two.

The third type of connection is the PCMCIA type, make sure your laptop has one of these before though, most laptops do, as I specified above it’s a long horizontal type port usually in one of the sides of your laptop, PCMCIA cards are quite cheap,

Not as obtrusive as the USB type connections, most people never use these type of connections for anything else, unless it’s a modem or a network card anyway. The only downside you will probably find will the card itself it may protrude a little from the port; due to the wireless aerial.

The last kind which is only suitable for desktop computers is the PCI type wireless card, you’ll need to open your pc up to install this one, it’s not difficult though, once install you fit it’s aerial onto the card at the rear of the case.

Onwards to security, the main thing to consider at this point is SECURITY.

When you set up a home network , the last thing you want is someone else connecting to it via wifi without your permission, so we have four kinds of security here.

Mac Address security
A Mac (media access control) address is the name given to the address of a network card it usually looks something like this 44-45-53-21-37-00, every network card regardless of whether it’s wireless or hard wired has a Mac address. Every Mac address is unique, no two networks can have the same address or you get a conflict.
For this kind of security you setup an access list on your router, you enter the Mac addresses of all pc’s you want to allow access into this list. Any computer trying to connect to your network with a Mac address not on the list, will be denied access.

WEP 64 bit security WEP ( wireless Equivalent Privacy ) is the name given to a protection type for wireless technology, with this you specify a 64 bit key, the same number has to be implemented onto any computer wishing to connect to your network, “no number = no entry” Web 128 bit security Same as WEP 64 bit apart from it uses a 128 bit key

WPA WPA (wireless protected access) is the latest wireless security protection, this uses unique encryption keys for each client, and these keys are updated periodically.

So as far as security goes WPA is indeed far more secure than WEP, but if you can only use WEP it is still very secure but most standards today.

Connect your Router/Modem as per the diagrams above, it should have come with a RJ45 LAN cable, connect you computer to the Router with this. You will need to initially configure it this way to begin with.

Computer adviser set up a home network article

Launch Internet explorer, type the address listed in the Routers manual, it will be something along the lines of http://192.168.2.1

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computer adviser set up a home network article