Nerd Alert - Networking Talk
When my lovely wife and I were married nearly ten years ago, I had a computer for work. The company I worked for provided it, so I never had a need to get my own. Eventually, being that I worked in the industry, I found a good deal on a rig that would play the games we hawked. I had that computer for four or five years before it couldn't do what I wanted any longer.
Then, we visited her brother and he was trotting around his pad with his laptop on a wifi connection and I got covetous. Plus, I had a pretty nice job at that point and we could afford some gear. I got a new laptop, then a short while later, a new desktop. We got her a laptop for school in that time frame, too.
THEN, the company where I worked offered us our freshly off-lease work desktops for free (so I took one). Five years later, we still have all of those machines:
- VPR Matrix tower (my primary desktop - gaming/audio production)
- eMachines laptop (my laptop - daily e-mail, web stuff, music, photo, etc.)
- Averatec laptop (wife's primary daily machine)
- Compaq desktop (old, 800 Mhz PIII work machine - slightly upgraded video card)
I also got a Netgear wireless router back when we got the laptops. For some reason, if you plug in an Ethernet connection, the wireless doesn't work as well or at all. Also, I've had a few people try to help me set up a simple home network over this system, but to no avail. I suspect the router is the issue.
My new plan is to do the following:
1. Get a new router, load DD-WRT or Tomato firmware
2. Wire-connect router, printer, and external hard drive to the Compaq
3. Set up the Compaq as the server for the new network (Linux or Win 7?)
4. Convert the VPR Matrix machine into a home theater PC (HTPC) with a new case that looks like a stereo component, then connect it to the nice TV
5. Build a new gaming/audio production PC
I already ordered the router, so now I'm one HTPC case away from putting this together. (And the new gaming PC, of course. More on that here if you're interested in that kind of thing.)
So, I'd appreciate any networking tips or software suggestions.
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3 comments:
I actually own Home Networking for Dummies, so I can't help too much.
Have you looked into NAS at all? There's lots of options out there and I'm curious what your take is.
I'm having a bastard of a time getting my new (refurb) HP box to recognize the 1.5TB drive I got at Tiger. When that thing is up and running, all of my downloads will go there and will be available across the network. Setting up the drive shoul be the easy part.
Oh and if you have any experience with Win7, I'd love to hear it.
Ha.
NAS drives are becoming more affordable, but there's also this thing for $55.
My brief experience with Win7 so far makes me think I'll upgrade to it from XP. I have not bothered with Vista, but Win7 seems pretty lightweight and lean on the crappy machine where I loaded it. I had Linux on there previously, and it runs better than Linux so far.
Oh.
My.
God.
My eyes!
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