How to network your home

By Craig Simms on 12 October 2009

This is a Learning Centre article, a multi-part series to be expanded regularly.

There's an area of computing that despite being in the mainstream, is still voodoo for a large number of people — networking. Although it's been with us for decades, networking is still far from the "push one button" simplicity it needs to be and can be quite daunting to the first timer.

In this Learning Centre feature, we'll walk you through understanding and creating your own home network, eventually moving on to more detailed concepts and fun things you can do once all your gadgets are happily talking to one another.

How to network your home

Topics: network your home, learning centre, 802.11, adsl, cable, ethernet, gigabit, modem, streaming, voip, wireless, router

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Comments (13)

  • Craig Simms commented on 14/10/2009 15:14 Report abuse

    J -- I'd expect there to be some degradation. It's a bit hard to tell exactly how much -- concrete could definitely play havoc, but the configuration of your walls will play as much a part as the materials. As far as I'm aware there's no hard and fast rules, it's pretty much a buy and try situation :\

  • J commented on 13/10/2009 20:32 Report abuse

    Hi. I live in an apartment and we have thick concrete walls. Is a wireless N router powerful enough for me to receive signals from one room to another while maintaining the speed?

  • slow commented on 08/10/2009 16:39 Report abuse

    I have windows vista and I love to watch Live Ice Hockey on my pc. Can someone tell me how do I watch live streaming from my pc to my LED TV in simple plain english Plz. I have spoken with home theatre install people and keep getting different stories so plz help me, someone, anyone

    Thanks
    Slow

  • no-one Important commented on 03/08/2009 17:46 Report abuse

    Hi Kaz, this may sound a little bit foriegn to you as you may not know networking and tcp/ip addresses, but generally speaking to connect to a ftp that a particular person may be running is very simple, it is just your ( or his/her) ip address that connects them to the internet but it just uses a different port number for different functions, like a web page will connect on a persons internet address using port 80 or 8080 and ftp is the same concept but uses if I remember port number 25, but this can be configured to use any port no that you allocate to it

  • Kaz commented on 26/06/2009 19:47 Report abuse

    We are trying to connect our topfield PVR to our wireless router/computer so that we can use Ice Tv guide better and transfer files to our computer etc. We thought we were doing well, but we don't know what FTP software to download and how to find our FTP address. Any advice??
    Ta

  • Craig Simms commented on 19/06/2009 11:34 Report abuse

    Yep Jusrob, it's fairly huge in scope -- it's just a matter of time.

  • jusrob commented on 12/06/2009 17:26 Report abuse

    Well I have xp talking to Vista pc to laptop & internet works well and media player streams music, but I can't work out the file sharing. Is this coming too?

  • Early Grayce commented on 06/06/2009 21:36 Report abuse

    No problems here networking my 2 XP devices with my Vista device and Windows Mobile Handheld

  • Craig Simms commented on 03/06/2009 23:26 Report abuse

    We'll certainly get to that bonehead, although it's a few instalments from now. Setting up a heterogeneous network in is just one of many headaches in the networking world.

  • bonehead commented on 03/06/2009 22:21 Report abuse

    its that simple NOT ,networking xp to vista ,a MAJOR hassle

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