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PyroWillGOLD Member
HoP's Barman. Trapped aged 6 months
4,437 posts
Location: Staines, United Kingdom


Posted:
My computer knowledge is alright but i start to balls it up when it comes to networking and the likes so all you computer geeks out there come to my aid!



Ive just come home from uni and am experiencing the sadness of going from a high speed net connection back to dial up frown and after speaking to my step dad hes agreed that if i sort it out for him (cos he doesnt know anything about it) he'll get it, so the dilemna is this the only condition for him getting the broadband for the house is if every can use it, this is because ive had braoadband a year ago just in my room (which i paid for). so this time we are gonna do the whole house which means my mums desktop computer downstairs and my laptop and my dads laptop, now i have access to a phone socket in my rookm so could go through there and he can plug his downstairs



so the question im asking whats the best way to kinda erm, not network the whole hosue cos i dont want our computers connected since my mum ahs a habit of collecting viruses, but still if we cna all connect the same way, i was thinking about connecting a wireless hub downstairs and just having my mums computer my dads and my laptop set up for it that way the computers arent connected to it but we can all access the net at the same time, am i right? im not sure, any help would be great smile

thanks

hug

EDITED_BY: PyroWill (1119637525)

An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind

Give a man a fish and he'll eat 4 a day hit a man with a brick and you can have all his fish and his wife

"Will's to pretty for prison" - Simian


SymBRONZE Member
Geek-enviro-hippy priest
1,858 posts
Location: Diss, Norfolk, United Kingdom


Posted:
Having the computers networked will open up a slight risk of one computer attacking the others but if you keep your secruity patches upto date then you shouldn't have any more problems then being on the internet itself.

You'll need a router of some sort to connent to the internet though. If you go wireless you can get modems (to conect to the internet), routers and wireless access points all build in to one thing. They cost about £60 give or take £20 depending on what you get. I like Belkin ones, but others might know better.

You'll also need some way of connenting the PC's. If you get a router with 4 ports as well as wireless then you could hard wire the PC's that are close to it if they don't have wireless network cards.

erm, is this helpful? I'm not sure what i'm saying any more!

get a router, get something for the client PC's (wireless cards or network cards) and plug it in.

There's too many home fires burning and not enough trees


PyroWillGOLD Member
HoP's Barman. Trapped aged 6 months
4,437 posts
Location: Staines, United Kingdom


Posted:
yeh thats cool, thanks a lot, im considering linking the desktop direct and the other 2 laptops including mine to wirlessly, however one of the laptops has a card slot to put in whereas mine doesnt, can you get wirelss usb? how else could i plug it into the laptop

An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind

Give a man a fish and he'll eat 4 a day hit a man with a brick and you can have all his fish and his wife

"Will's to pretty for prison" - Simian


GherkinGOLD Member
Inventor
117 posts
Location: Australia


Posted:
How about a wireless router? I think you can get wireless usb thingos... Your best bet would be to go to a good computer store and ask the guys in there.

polaritySILVER Member
veteran
1,228 posts
Location: on the wrong planet, United Kingdom


Posted:
You've got a few options for network layout:

Code:

---- = wired
- - = wireless
|----|network card |Desktop PC
Phone socket---Router wired+WiFi|- -|wireless card| Laptop
|- -|usb wirless |Laptop

|- -|WiFi card|Desktop PC
Phone socket---Router WiFi only |- -|WiFi card|Laptop
|- -|USB WiFi |Laptop

Phone socket---USB Modem---Desktop PC---USB WiFi|- -|WiFi card|Laptop
|- -|USB WiFi |Laptop




D-Link and Netgear also make good networking hardware (it's best to get Wireless hardware all from the same manufacturer). Unless you're transfering huge files between computers, then you can get by on the cheaper 11Mbps 802.11b wireless hardware.

You can save yourself a packet by buying all the hardware online, at sites like savastore.co.uk (cheapest, but not so easy to navigate) or aria.co.uk (better support). You will get ripped off at places like Dixons or PC World.

Check out ispreview.co.uk to see what the current best ISPs are, most of the ones that advertise heavily aren't so good, especially when it comes to support.

Get hold of some basic security and antivirus / antispyware software. You dont have to pay anything for this, and a lot of the free stuff is actually better than products like Norton, McCaffee and Symantec.

For Antivirus I'd recommend Avast, their database is updated very regularly, and it will detect new viruses before nearly every other program. It also automatically notifies you when a newer version is available, and you can install this with just a couple of clicks. It's best to turn off some of the full time scanning on older computers, as AV can slow the computer to a crawl every time a file is opened or a program is run.

Firewalls will stop your computers getting attacked from the internet, or from viruses on computers on your network. For this I recommend Kerio Personal Firewall, or Zone Alarm. You should also make sure that any router has a built in firewall, even if it's only basic.

There is a lot of free anti-spyware software out there, but a huge amount is actually produced by the same people as the spyware, and is worse than useless. The only two packages you should need are Spybot - Search & Destroy, and Ad-Aware SE Personal Edition.

Also get rid of Internet Explorer, as it's as full of security holes as the rest of windows, and picks up spyware really quickly. Mozilla Firefox is the best alternative, which is very simple and easy to use, and can have all kinds of useful features added through extensions (like a really good calendar). Mozilla's Thunderbird email program also makes a good replacement for Microsoft's Outlook Express if you're not using web mail.

Having the latest security updates is a good idea, but it takes Microsoft too long to fix problems, so the extra software is a good idea. I run all the above and haven't seen spyware or viruses for ages, despite not being up to date with patches. Windows comes with auto-update turned on by default, so it should always have the latest security updates, but I've had to fix people's Windows computers that had literally hundreds of spyware programs on them, in spite of this.

You're probably better off getting help on a dedicated computer forum, instead of a shop, at least there they're not trying to sell you something. Try TomsHardware or Anandtech

You aren't thinking or really existing unless you're willing to risk even your own sanity in the judgment of your existence.

Green peppers, lime pickle and whole-grain mustard = best sandwich filling.


PyroWillGOLD Member
HoP's Barman. Trapped aged 6 months
4,437 posts
Location: Staines, United Kingdom


Posted:
Thats a lot of information to absorb so i'll read it when im not rushed to go to work, thanks so much Polarity hug
and sym wink

An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind

Give a man a fish and he'll eat 4 a day hit a man with a brick and you can have all his fish and his wife

"Will's to pretty for prison" - Simian


PyroWillGOLD Member
HoP's Barman. Trapped aged 6 months
4,437 posts
Location: Staines, United Kingdom


Posted:
If i bought the wirrless router and hardware first can i get an ISP later? like as in i dont have to arrange having an isp before buying the stuff i can do it separate yeh?

An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind

Give a man a fish and he'll eat 4 a day hit a man with a brick and you can have all his fish and his wife

"Will's to pretty for prison" - Simian


polaritySILVER Member
veteran
1,228 posts
Location: on the wrong planet, United Kingdom


Posted:
Some ISPs will give you a router as part of the package, but they're always cheap and nasty, so it's best to get your own.

Everything'll work fine without the ISP, so you can get one half of the setup tested first.

You aren't thinking or really existing unless you're willing to risk even your own sanity in the judgment of your existence.

Green peppers, lime pickle and whole-grain mustard = best sandwich filling.


mechBRONZE Member
Carpal \'Tunnel
6,207 posts
Location: "In your ear", United Kingdom


Posted:
if i lived near you will i would come sort it for you!

ill read all this tomorrow and post some more help for you

unless you want to mail me direct and ill give you a hand, i set up home wireless networks and wireed home networks for staff at home quite often,

shout of you need me!

Step (el-nombrie)


PyroWillGOLD Member
HoP's Barman. Trapped aged 6 months
4,437 posts
Location: Staines, United Kingdom


Posted:
Right been looking around and im even more confused, luckily i found out that My Computer has built in wireless lan 802.11b/g so that means i need to get a router which plugs into the phone line right and i can keep downstairs by the phone socket, i also need to get a wireless pci card for my mums desktop, can i connect it directly though to her desktop cos he computer is only about 8 feet from the phone port so can you plug a desktop into the router directly aswell as have 2 laptops connected to it wirelessly, now ive looked at some sites and to be honest, everything looks the same, id ont suppose someone could just pick a good one for me and show em what i need, this all doesnt make sense, also i dont want to get an isp that gives me a download limit or such and such Gb, im after unlimited storage and hours, any idea whats going?

An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind

Give a man a fish and he'll eat 4 a day hit a man with a brick and you can have all his fish and his wife

"Will's to pretty for prison" - Simian


polaritySILVER Member
veteran
1,228 posts
Location: on the wrong planet, United Kingdom


Posted:
If you go to aria then the Linksys Wireless-G ADSL Gateway seems to be what you're after. At the moment they're doing a special offer, and the more expensive of the 2 listed (by about 8 pounds) is a pack with a notebook card included, so even though the router is more expensive, than say the Netgear version, it's a better deal.

You'll also need a straight through network cable to connect the router to the desktop, like a 1m Standard UTP Net Cable RJ45, and a PCI network card, like the Linksys EtherFast® 10/100 LAN Card.

Wireless can sometimes be a pain to set up compared to wired, so it's handy to have a wired connection to the router, so you can see if it's the router's wireless settings that are causing problems.

----

Big name ISPs can offer their cheap rates mainly through download limits, and anything that's cheap and fast (like 2Mb for £17) has probably got a download limit. I'm on 512Kb for £24, but there are no restrictions whatsoever, and the speed is very good. (Your 1Mb could be shared with up to 50 other people, so you may not get the full rate all the time). I picked eclipse.co.uk because they were the top ISP (according to ISPreview) with a free static IP (so I can have a domain name and my own webservers) when I signed up.

Prices are also fixed thanks to BT owning most of the cabling and exchange equipment, and overcharging everyone else to use it. If you're lucky to be in the right area, then ISPs like ukonline.net own their own equipment and lines, and do very cheap high speed (as in 8Mb/s). They do have a download limit, but 500Gb/month is huge.

ISPreview should have comments on bandwidth limits.

----


Seperately, does anyone know a cheap way to get 512Kb or 1Mb/s upstream? I want to host a few websites, but don't want to colocate.

You aren't thinking or really existing unless you're willing to risk even your own sanity in the judgment of your existence.

Green peppers, lime pickle and whole-grain mustard = best sandwich filling.


PyroWillGOLD Member
HoP's Barman. Trapped aged 6 months
4,437 posts
Location: Staines, United Kingdom


Posted:
once again you;ve given me some amazingly helpful info so thanks hug and once again im rushing out to do my hefty 9 till 6 on my feet at a boring bar serving old people gravy, so only have time for a quick question, how reliable is the wireless connection say if you set up the router n everything could i sit upstairs be online with a good fast conneciton and not suddenly for some reason just get cut off n then have to move my computer an inch forward or something, also do you think it would work outside? as in only about 20 feet from the router but through a wall on like the outside table n such since summer is here

An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind

Give a man a fish and he'll eat 4 a day hit a man with a brick and you can have all his fish and his wife

"Will's to pretty for prison" - Simian


mechBRONZE Member
Carpal \'Tunnel
6,207 posts
Location: "In your ear", United Kingdom


Posted:
yes, but that all depends on the age and style of your house

wirings, matal suuports and things always affect the tunneling strenght of the wireless kit, however normally home kits are pretty good, and should bounce around your house pretty good

as or outside, then yes it should work

Step (el-nombrie)


polaritySILVER Member
veteran
1,228 posts
Location: on the wrong planet, United Kingdom


Posted:
Stear clear of cheap hardware and the antennas in the better stuff should have the range you need. They usually quote 100m outdoors, and should be able to manage 20m in bad conditions. The hardware is expected to work in offices where there's huge amounts of interference from computers, phones and fluorescent light transformers, and offices usually have a lot of metal in the construction materials.

You should only have problems indoors with solid brick or stone interior walls. You can always put the router in the best place, and run the phone cable to it, although you'd have to get a longer network cable for the Desktop if it isn't wireless.

You don't usually just get cut off from a wireless connection, you slowly lose speed instead, so you may end up only getting 2Mbps off a 54Mbps card, although that's still faster than broadband, so you won't notice it. You'll be very lucky to get the full 54Mbs, it's the theoretical maximum, and is more a marketing ploy than the true potential of the hardware.

I you want an idea of the range of a home wireless set up take a look at this. It's pretty funny.

You're not planning on getting the ISP later, on the offchance that a neighbor has a wireless network are you? wink biggrin

You aren't thinking or really existing unless you're willing to risk even your own sanity in the judgment of your existence.

Green peppers, lime pickle and whole-grain mustard = best sandwich filling.


mechBRONZE Member
Carpal \'Tunnel
6,207 posts
Location: "In your ear", United Kingdom


Posted:
Written by: polarity




You're not planning on getting the ISP later, on the offchance that a neighbor has a wireless network are you? wink biggrin




*cough*ILLEGAL*splutter*

and can cost you a lot more if you are caught

Step (el-nombrie)


polaritySILVER Member
veteran
1,228 posts
Location: on the wrong planet, United Kingdom


Posted:
Yeah. I should have mentioned that redface

I wouldn't want anyone nicking my bandwidth when I start using wireless. (Everything here is wired, so the network can handle video)

I'll be running a community internet center, using a wireless link to my house for server admin, so it's going to have VPN using AES encryption, seeing as WEP encryption is so pathetic, and there will be several houses in the few km between the two sites. Hopefully I'll be doing local ISP for everyone in between though biggrin There's a good chance people in the area can crack normal wireless, as a lot of people where we want to move work for the MOD, or whatever it's calling itself these days.

I can't do anything until we sell our house and move though, which is driving me nuts. (well, more nuts ubbloco)


Crazy enough to need a glossary for the non computer literate wink
VPN = Virtual Private Network.
AES = No successful attacks against this encryption have been found, and it's been recognised by the US government as good enough for classified information.
WEP = Instructions on how to crack this are publically available, as well as how to crack certain forms of the better WPA and WPA2 security.

You aren't thinking or really existing unless you're willing to risk even your own sanity in the judgment of your existence.

Green peppers, lime pickle and whole-grain mustard = best sandwich filling.


Mr ChutneySILVER Member
Tosser
1,712 posts
Location: Bristol,UK


Posted:
A handy site for checking out and comparing Broadband services is ADSL guide. They have very active forums, a constantly updated ranking system and Broadband configuration guides. Might be worth a read smile

UCOFSILVER Member
15,417 posts
Location: South Wales


Posted:
It seems like bt are the best best going on what that site says i think..

that and the fact I have had them for a year and have had no problems.

smile

.Morph.SILVER Member
addict
669 posts
Location: Lancashire, UK


Posted:
Another satisfied BT user here.
smile

PyroWillGOLD Member
HoP's Barman. Trapped aged 6 months
4,437 posts
Location: Staines, United Kingdom


Posted:
to be honet iw ouldnt mind going with bt since we had them for dial up, i got advised telewest today who do cable rather tahn ADSL but i called them up and they say they dont service my area, but i knwo BT will, but the only problem is so far all ive seen with bt is they have the monthly usage limit, im scared of that!

An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind

Give a man a fish and he'll eat 4 a day hit a man with a brick and you can have all his fish and his wife

"Will's to pretty for prison" - Simian


polaritySILVER Member
veteran
1,228 posts
Location: on the wrong planet, United Kingdom


Posted:
confused

What about this?
Three huge corporations, compared with three companies that only do ISP (Freeserve was bought by Wanadoo, which is owned by France Telecom).

Simple facts, the most widely used isn't necessarily the best. The biggest company won't provide the best product or service. Advertise enough and you can get people to eat s**t and enjoy it.

Advertising makes use of a huge amount of psychological research to make you believe stuff you never would if you were to find out the facts for yourself. So it's a good bet that a similar product that isn't advertised is always better.


I was with BT for about a year, and during that time continually got cut off during downloads of more than a few Mb, hit usage limits about half way through the month, and had days at a time when their email servers were down.

Eclipse has never once cut off for any reason in 4 years, and their email service is exceptional. The best part is the speed, which can be twice what BT managed, and I make huge demands on the bandwidth, as I'm maintaining local archives of several free OSs. (OpenBSD, NetBSD, FreeBSD, and Ubuntu and Mandrake Linux, all on i386, Sparc, Sparc64 and PPC where versions are available).

BT is bad enough to have a site called btsuck.org dedicated to them (temporarily offline since last night though). This one's a bit old, but details why they're so bad as a company.

If you want to see how Internet should work you'd have to go to Japan, where for the price of 512Kb with limits here, you can get 100Mb unlimited, and quite possibly gigabit in a year or so. Also that's available almost anywhere, and Japan isn't exactly the easiest country to lay cables in (earthquake zone, and very mountainous/forrested). You can also get wireless 64Kb cheaply in almost the same area.

You aren't thinking or really existing unless you're willing to risk even your own sanity in the judgment of your existence.

Green peppers, lime pickle and whole-grain mustard = best sandwich filling.


Mr ChutneySILVER Member
Tosser
1,712 posts
Location: Bristol,UK


Posted:
I used BT for a year and it was awful, HOWEVER that was mainly because someone was using eDonkey, a P2P file sharing programme that opens lots and lots of ports on your router, often breaking it.

Read about in the forums- ADSL guide has some great info on contention, outages etc- don't get sold just on the specs- theres far better out there as Polarity has clearly indicated smile

polaritySILVER Member
veteran
1,228 posts
Location: on the wrong planet, United Kingdom


Posted:
I forgot to say thanks for posting the link to ADSLguide, that's a great site. ISPreview is more for people who can't get normal ADSL, as they rate things like sattelite and radio (I found them before ADSL was available here).

Yep, P2P puts a huge strain on a network, and the computer running it, as it connects to thousands of computers at the same time. If someone on your network starts running P2P without some kind of limits it will use up all available bandwidth, so web pages just won't load.

Things like Kazaa, Grokster, eDonkey and Shareazaa are either spyware, or use up bandwidth for advertising.

If you do decide to use P2P, eMule is probably the best bet. As it's open source it's got no spyware or advertising. There's also a web interface, so other people can use a copy running on one computer, instead of really messing up the network by having copies on lots of computers, you can also set a schedule so that it only uses the full bandwidth when no-one is likely to be using the internet.

You aren't thinking or really existing unless you're willing to risk even your own sanity in the judgment of your existence.

Green peppers, lime pickle and whole-grain mustard = best sandwich filling.


UCOFSILVER Member
15,417 posts
Location: South Wales


Posted:
I know one of the people who helped invent and develop Emule

smile

oh..and firefox when it was known as Phoenix I believe

polaritySILVER Member
veteran
1,228 posts
Location: on the wrong planet, United Kingdom


Posted:
Heh, they changed the name so often that there's now an extension for firefox that changes what it's called every time you start it up (so you don't have to miss the silliness). You can even make up stupid random names from a couple of lists, like:



monkey

badger

fruit

chicken

choder

butt



molester

spanker

f**cker

boy

lord

munch



if you put about:config into the address bar, then edit the settings. (I think my exposure to Beavis and Butthead affected my choice of words wink )



It's called firesomething.



eMule is just awesome biggrin

You aren't thinking or really existing unless you're willing to risk even your own sanity in the judgment of your existence.

Green peppers, lime pickle and whole-grain mustard = best sandwich filling.


UCOFSILVER Member
15,417 posts
Location: South Wales


Posted:
WTF is a browser throbber?

eek

PyroWillGOLD Member
HoP's Barman. Trapped aged 6 months
4,437 posts
Location: Staines, United Kingdom


Posted:
Im interested in Eclipse now, theys eemt og et the best reviews out of most people yet im a bit unsure of going with an ISP ive never heard of but i think im prob a victime of psychological advertising, do hey have a monthly usage limit?

An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind

Give a man a fish and he'll eat 4 a day hit a man with a brick and you can have all his fish and his wife

"Will's to pretty for prison" - Simian


UCOFSILVER Member
15,417 posts
Location: South Wales


Posted:
"theys eemt og et"
Translation: They seem to get

wink

PyroWillGOLD Member
HoP's Barman. Trapped aged 6 months
4,437 posts
Location: Staines, United Kingdom


Posted:
I didnt think i had to translate my typing, I would have though the majority of you could speak Willish now

Right question to Polarity, Im really interesteed by eclipse they have won awards and their customer feedback seems to be very good.

Would you recommend if i went through them to buy the router from them too, the speedtouch 4 port one but it doesnt say its a wireless router, or is that wireless as standard and it jsut wouldnt say it?

im thinking about the home 1000 offer or something, thanks againa for all your help

An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind

Give a man a fish and he'll eat 4 a day hit a man with a brick and you can have all his fish and his wife

"Will's to pretty for prison" - Simian


polaritySILVER Member
veteran
1,228 posts
Location: on the wrong planet, United Kingdom


Posted:
UCoF: A throbber is something like an animated gif that cycles. It shows that the browser is doing something like recieving a web page, instead of sitting doing nothing. I'm sure someone has made something closer to what you're thinking of, maybe in a 'skin' pack wink



"theys eemt og et"



You should have seen me this morning, I was so knackered I was mixing up s's and 2's, and o's and 0's, and starting to write in H@X0/. I'm just completely anal and go back and edit everything though biggrin



PyroWill: Eclipse is known for having a package with no bandwidth limits at all. Some ISPs will block your computer from connecting to certain ports, including those that P2P software uses (so even if you get huge bandwidth and no limit's it's still no good for P2P), and the ports on your computer may be blocked too, so you can't run a webserver. That's the main reason I went with Eclipse, and the fact that I can have 8 free static IP addresses if I ever need them (one is enough for now).



If you get the basic 256 or 512kb Flex package, and you think you might want to get a bit more speed you can temporarily speed up to 2Mb/s for 19 or 13p an hour, in case you want to get a big file quicker (althoug it also depends on how fast the server you download from can give you the file). 2Mb/s is huge. I can't saturate 512 all the time, and you don't have to wait too long for big files. I got an OS CD through bittorrent in 3 hours (at 70 kilobytes/second).



The standard Home Broadband packages have limits on, which seems to be normal for most 2Mb packages, as it's something to do with BT line ownership again. Only the Flex options are unlimited.



The tech support is good, and if they do put you on hold the music is good enough that you might want to keep listening wink I only ever needed to call them once, to find out why I couldn't initially connect. It turned out BT were late turning on my connection at the exchange. Everything else, including the Flex speed upgrades can be done through the main eclipse site, which is pretty easy to understand, unlike many other ISP sites, and has a good knowledge base for most questions.







The Speedtouch router seems a bit expensive, seeing as it's made by Thompson, usually known for cheap (and a bit nasty) hardware, and it doesn't include wireless. I think the modems supplied as a package are part of the deal with BT for line rental, as everywhere seems to do the same cheap Thompson ones (is Thompson owned by BT or something?). Linksys by comparison is part of Cisco, known for making the most advanced networking equipment.



The set up for Speedtouch modems/routers is done through telnet, so you have to type commands in. Linksys has a web interface, so you simply point your browser at something like https://192.168.0.1/
and you get a nice menu. It also includes a firewall in the router.



You don't have to worry about eclipse's microfilters being crap though.





ADSLguide also do hardware reviews.







Don't worry about companies you've never heard of, if a company like BT put half as much money into customer service as they did into advertising they'd be much better, and users would be willing to pay a bit more, even though there might be less users. That's how companies like eclipse figure it.
EDITED_BY: polarity (1118711669)

You aren't thinking or really existing unless you're willing to risk even your own sanity in the judgment of your existence.

Green peppers, lime pickle and whole-grain mustard = best sandwich filling.


PyroWillGOLD Member
HoP's Barman. Trapped aged 6 months
4,437 posts
Location: Staines, United Kingdom


Posted:
thanks mate, back to my question about the router, si ti cool to say buy the service with eclipse then buy a router and card etc separately weither online or with a shop? that shouldn't pose any problems right? and i entered my phone number and i think they said i could get the home 1000 fine but the 2mbs may be a prob, anyway bedtime, i shall resume this in the morning!

An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind

Give a man a fish and he'll eat 4 a day hit a man with a brick and you can have all his fish and his wife

"Will's to pretty for prison" - Simian


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