How Home Networking Works

If you own multiple PCs, you have probably thought about how great it would be if your computers could talk to each other. With your computers connected, you could: Share a single printer between computers Share a single Internet connection among all the computers in your home Access shared files such as photographs, MP3s, spreadsheets and documents on any computer in the house Play games that allow multiple users at different computers Send the …

…of two Ethernet cards, a small hub and two cables. Each additional computer will cost about $30 to $40 to connect using inexpensive network cards. *Note: If you want to connect just two computers, you can avoid the hub and use a crossover Cat 5 cable. With a crossover cable, you directly connect one NIC card to the other without a hub. This only works for two computers -- to connect more than two you need a hub.