Wireless Networking v. Wallpapering - You Choose (General Comments on Networking)

Member Name: Nibelung

Product:	General Comments on Networking
Date:	22/02/03 (399 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Wirelss networking is neater in the home environement, Less damage to decorations, Bore the pants off friends and influence people

Disadvantages: Radio can mean a slight compromising of security

Funny how things snowball, isn't it?

There I was last week, thinking that I'd just got my PC set-up just how I wanted it - broadband connection, flat 17" LCD screen, hi-fi sound, plenty of RAM and disk space and a none-too-shabby processor speed, when into the Nibelung household comes another supposedly broken-down PC, a kind of payment-in-kind for services rendered to a lady colleague at work. The nature of these services was purely technical, I hasten to add - that's the official party line, and I see no need to deviate from it!

So there I am with another PC, this one sat on the dining table (always a "popular" place to leave things for weeks in our house).

Having got the kit working again, and running Windows 98SE (there's no way I'm lashing out on another bloody copy of Windows XP), I'd given little thought to what I was going to do with it, save some vague notion of selling it.

"Hmmm", says my wife, tentatively, "a second computer WOULD be quite handy, especially on Sundays when I've got paper work to catch up with (and by implication, when I'M using it!)."

Since any extra PC would have to sit in one corner of the dining room and pretend it wasn't there, we agreed that a full "work station", complete with printer, wouldn't be appropriate.

"Of course", says I with a cavalier flourish," I could always network it with the main PC upstairs".

I knew a dangerously marginal amount about networking, as I've never been an IT professional, but I was the only person in the office who knew how to unblock print queues, and reboot the server! I was also fairly experienced in wiring up and connecting PC's to a Local Area Network (LAN), having spent two weekends grovelling with my arm down various under-floor ducts in Euston Tower, in amongst the fluff and the Warfarine rat poison, shouting "up yo
ur end!" and similar innuendos to my boss.

Well, that did it. I explained that networking the extra PC along with our main PC would bring such benefits as shared printers, shared My Documents files and, if I could swing it, shared broadband internet access.

Like most technical "solutions", there is more than one way to skin this particular rabbit, even in a home environment.

PEER-TO-PEER WORKING

Firstly, there is the simplest but possibly inferior way. This is called peer-to-peer working. This involves connecting the PC's together in some way. The VERY simplest way is to use the Windows Direct Cable Connection facility, which involves connecting the PC via their serial (COM) ports using what is known as a "null-modem cable".

If your PCs don't share the same room, and assuming that you could buy a long enough cable already with its plugs, any routing of the cable would have to involve passing the said plugs (about 1" long) through holes in the wall. In reality you'd probably want to pass only the cable through smaller holes, and solder the wires to plugs afterwards. This would of course require a reasonable level of knowledge, not only of soldering, but also of which wire goes where!

Being connected by COM ports limits line speed to 115 kbytes/second, which is about three times faster than a dial-up modem could achieve, but way slower than the "proper" method of linking peer PCs together, which is to fit a network card in each, looking somewhat like another internal modem. These are then linked by cable. This speeds up the connection by a very large margin, making the loading of files from the remote drive a much more practical proposition.

Here again, the cable connection needs to be run from room to room, and in my case, between storeys. For a really neat job, you'd fit wall sockets, using only short cables to link PC to wall.

Using eit
her of these hard-wired methods, you can then take advantage of Windows' ability to share printers and drives (or parts of drives), as both machines can now use each other's facilities.

As you would expect there are pros and cons to this approach.

On the plus side, you have ease of set up, which may, at most, require the installation of only two bits of "plug-and-pray" equipment, a path between them, some cable, and some alterations to your Windows environment. If you can get away with the serial-to-serial method, then only wire and plugs will be needed.

The down side, is that the machine which actually has the physical internet connection and the desired peripherals, printers etc. HAS to be running for the second machine to be able to surf, print and access shared data, otherwise the newcomer reverts to being a lonely little petunia in an onion patch.

Of course, in our own case, we would only be using the second PC when the first one was in use, so this needn't be the sticking point that at first it may seem.

Since I had last anything to do with LANs in anger, things have happened. Wireless connection between PCs is now possible, and more importantly for the home user, reasonably priced. For example, www.dabs.com sell a PAIR of external USB-port wireless network adapters for £80 including VAT. This is actually quite favourable compared to a hard-wired solution often needing two network cards (say £15 each for decent ones) and God-knows how much cable and two wall sockets to make a cosmetically-satisfactory job of it. Then there's the redecorating!

You may even have to buy some cable crimping tools - I couldn't say exactly as I'm not intending going down this route. In my own case, the thought of providing a tidy route between a little bedroom over the front door to rear dining room doesn't bear thinking about, and would be enough for me to kick the job into touch, as far as

I'm concerned.

So, from my point of view, a cordless solution is the only viable one, even if peer-to-peer doesn't quite "do it" for me.

Given that my neighbour has a 1-gigabyte broadband link, an internet server for his part-time business, a games PC and his normal PC all packed into the corresponding little bedroom, he seemed like an obvious person to ask for advice. (Makes mental note for later - make sure I'm using a different wireless channel to next door!)

He said something like "What you really want is a 50 megaton dongler, with a built-in 4-watt bisexual foot-warmer, and a USB* cordless vibrator", or at least, he may as well have done. Actually, I jest, as I did understand every OTHER word, and gleaned that the "box" I would be getting, would allow either machine to access the Internet independently of each other, irrespective of the other's current on/off status. Effectively, both machines would see this box as their LAN server.

*Universal Serial Bus, or could it be U Silly B*****d?

I'd also have a permanent firewall, although only of a basic kind (NAT for the technical, so don't uninstall those free copies of Zone Alarm just yet!) and the previously mentioned benefits of shared printers and drives. Ominously, it was also going to cost more, what a surprise!

"OK," says I, "you tell me what to buy, and I'll let you know when it arrives, then YOU can come and help me get it going".

After all, a deal's a deal, and I haven't forgotten that he's still got my ladders and half of my DVD collection.

WHAT I ACTUALLY BOUGHT

A Wireless Access Point (WAP) Router combined with a 4-Port Switch (£99.87) and one single Wireless USB Interface (£57.57), both by Linksys Networking. You see, I KNEW it had 4 of something, but you've got admit, "foot-warmers" sounded more interesting!


OK, OK, I know that 160 quid is considerably more than the peer-to-peer wireless route, and EVEN more than a hard-wired version, but bear in mind that the extra PC was a gift. However, we're still wavering about locations both within the house, and also where we'll actually be in a couple of year's time so the wireless solution makes personal sense both from the flexibility, and saleability of the house points of view. It wouldn't be every homebuyer's choice to find the house wired like the CIA's Headquarters, and anyway, I know how difficult it is in this place to find neat cabling solutions if you don't want to end up re-decorating three rooms as a result. All the internal walls are still brick and it takes all afternoon just to fit a new light switch - and that's BEFORE you have to re-wallpaper!

One further benefit of this particular router, is that it accepts both a physical hard-wired connection from the main PC, and a wireless link to the other PC, thus although being dearer in itself, it only requires one wireless adapter for the remote PC, to be purchased, not one for each PC.

INSTALLATION (SUCH AS IT IS)

The wireless router intercepts the cable from the broadband modem and the PC's network card, thus a physical main Internet connection is maintained. As with fitting a new VCR in between the aerial socket and the telly, they give you the extra cable that you'll need.

I assume (correctly, it would seem, as I've just tried it) that this approach would also make it easier to revert to "plan A" should the router fail, merely by taking it back out of the loop, and restoring my existing Telewest Broadband to a single terminal.

I decided to take the step-by-step approach, fitting only the main PC to the "box" first. The wireless link could wait (for another opinion, you'll be relieved to know). If you apply this principle to anything technical that y
ou might be "building", tracing where you have gone wrong is a lot easier.

The first thing that you need to do is note down existing Internet connection settings. The manual tells you precisely how to do this, although my Telewest modem has its own diagnostics page, accessed via the browser, which lists out anything relevant.

In reality, you don't have to do any of this to kick off, because there is a CD-ROM with the exhortation "RUN ME FIRST" written in 2" letters on its envelope. So, before breaking and remaking any connections at all, you run the disk, which duly notes your current Internet settings, and talks you through the rest of the process, including the physical connections, what to switch off and so on. One slight logistical error comes to light though. At the end, it announces "It is now safe to turn your PC on". So what was I using to view the CD-ROM, pray?

Of course, this gets the kit working. There are many more refinements for which the 114-page manual, which is a .pdf file on the CD-ROM or downloadable in advance from www.linkksys.com, is a must, like setting up the encryption on any radio links to prevent digital eavesdropping on your infant network. Don't forget that these wireless links could carry up to 1500' in ideal conditions.

You configure the router by accessing its own internal web page which you could put in "Favourites" to speed up the process, and which is protected by an "Admin" password, which by default is....errrr....."Admin"!

The second PC is even more of a doddle to configure. Just run the installation software for the USB wireless adapter, plug the device in on re-boot and voila. Within seconds, it will scan for nearby networks, and in the event of there being more than one, ask you which is yours. In my case, my neighbour's also showed up, but there was no risk of my eavesdropping on him, because he alr
eady had the 128-bit encryption turned on. As a precaution, I changed my default radio channel to a different one, and initialised my own encryption, which involves putting the very same password in at both ends of my network to generate the encryption key. I am now covered by a totally different encryption code.

FACILITIES

As well as allowing two PCs to use the one common broadband Internet connection**, with or without its partner being switched on, the second PC can now use both the Canon laser and the new HP inkjet upstairs. It can also share a common directory of My Documents, instead of having document versions of differing vintages in two places. Of course, the main PC needs to be turned on for these latter activities. I won't go into the detail of this here, because it's not actually anything to do with the Router, more a function of Windows, and this can differ slightly, depending on your version.

** (this CAN slow the connection down, but since surfing tends to consist of periods of computer activity, followed by periods of reading the screen, this is only noticeable when both PC users are up- or down-loading at the same time.)

Another more advanced feature that I've yet to use in anger is VPN, no, it's not Visible Panty Ninjas, it's Virtual Private Network. What this means is that, with your PCs left running whilst you are out, or possibly on stand-by, you can access them and their drives remotely from anywhere on the Internet. Of course, this is subject to sign-on and password protection, as well as being encrypted, but I can see it being invaluable for my wife if she wants to get a copy of some planning document that she's drafted at home whilst she's still at school. It goes without saying that a 24/7 Internet connection is needed too.

FOOTNOTE

My neighbour has made a further suggestion since getting this all up and running. Why don't I get a third PC, to insert into
my network upstream of everything except the modem? This can then act as a full firewall to the whole system, without having to relax my grip on fire walling. At the moment, I have had to "lower my guard" slightly to allow each PC to talk to the other. A third PC eh? Hmmm, it needs thinking about!

And another thing, why does MS Word insist that "internet" is spelled with a capital "I"?

I thought of this in the Bath, just before going out in the Car this Morning.

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