If you have more than one computer and a printer, you could benefit from networking your office or your home office. We will do the best method of connectivity for your needs or just help you to optimize your existing network. At Arcadia Computer, Inc. we offer a full range of network solutions for your home. From installation of hard wired systems to wireless systems. Arcadia Computer, Inc. is your place for all your networking needs. We specialize in making sure your network is secure with state of the art firewalls and the latest security. Your data will be safe with Arcadia Computers, Inc.
Building a home network doesn’t have to be tuff. First question: Why would you want to? Only ten (10) year ago that question would have been answered only with ‘you’re an incurable geek.’ But nowadays there are so many products and services being offered for home networks that it’s really a question of ‘why wouldn’t you want to?’
A home network will let you share high-speed internet access with any computer in the house. A network lets you control what the kids are doing on the web, share data and multimedia files across your computers, automate backups for all those computers and even webcams to see what that new puppy might be doing will you are at work. With a home network, the upstairs bedroom computer can print to the color printer downstairs in the study and the media PC in the family room can show a movie on the PC connected to the TV in the master bedroom.
All that’s accomplished simply by hooking your Windows PCs together. Adding on network oriented products make the network even more useful. Shared network hard disks let you create shared folders for each member of the family that can be accessed both the home network or from the Internet, if you’re away from home. There also a great place to store back up files. Network printers, webcams, even IP phones are all available in home network flavors and can help maximize the return on your time and effort. And getting in the game isn’t hard. All you have to do to set up the basic home network is a few basic steps:
- High-Speed Internet
You can build a network without High Speed Internet, but that’s a little like building a boat & then parking it in the backyard. The Web makes the home networking worthwhile, & starting there means you’ll begin in the right place. The Home Internet Router.
- Understanding Your Router
The router is now the heart of your home network – which is good. That’s because it’s doing several important jobs. First, it’s the outward face of your Internet connection. To the phone, cable or satellite company, your Internet account represented by just one Internet Address. On the routers basic setup page you we see that address at the top, generally labeled something like “WAN IP address”. This is all that the provider or anyone on the Internet can see of your network. The router maintains that external address and hands out a bunch of internal addresses to the computers in the house. The process of translating traffic between the internal & external addresses is called Network Address Translation (NAT) and the process of handing out those addresses automatically is called the Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP).
- Smartening up your Computers
Once your router is functioning and your computers are plugged in, you’ve got to make sure all the computers can see not just the Internet, but each other as well. For Vista machines, you’re not going to have to do much but wait. This version of Windows is much smarter about networking. Vista PC’s will find each other on the network as long as they’re all in the same IP subnet. If not Vista has a couple of fixit wizards as well as the “Setup a home network” wizard for you to fall back on. Windows XP machines, on the other hand, are a mixed bag. You’re best off running the “Set up a Home Network” wizard right away for XP. Just run the network wizard from every machine individually. The most thinking you’ll do there is picking a workgroup name for your network.
- Wired or Wireless
This is covered under our section called “Home Networking: Wire and Wireless”.
And in the end run if all this is still confusing to you, ARCADIA COMPUTER, INC., and their technicians are here to assist you with all your home networking needs. All you have to do is call
