Saturday, June 17, 2006

Well..about the networking thing...
I'll tell you some things of my own..
The first thing that intrigued me was that can two PC's be directly connected to each other by a wire between them or do they need a Router or a switch??


I thaught and thaught & thaught upon this topic and then thaught some more when surfing thru the net I got the help I needed.I googled thru for "lan network beetwen two PC" and clicked on many of the results when I found 3-4 helpful sites.
The first thing that they taught me was that for establishing a lan nwtwork between two comp's you need a crossover cable.Be careful while buying the "Cable for Lan connection",buy the length which is neither too short nor too long else there will be unneccecary data loss and coiling up of the cable.If you are wondering what a crossover cable is, visit this site http://pinouts.ru/data/Ethernet100BaseT4Crossover_pinout.shtml just copy and paste in your browser address bar.Also you need a Ethernet card or a Lan card as it is sometimes known.If you already have a broadband Internet connection,then you might have one of these.I have a Lan card built on my intel motherboard.



You will also need a RJ45 pin availabel cheap,but dont you yourself try to get the wire into the pin cause you have to do something known as "pushing the pins in" which needs a special instrument. I got the pinning done thru a small electronics shop for a cheap price of rs 10 i.e about 12cents.
But see that the wires are arranged in the same fashion as given in the diagram at the link above.The cable contains 8 small wires and the idea of crossover is simple. If comp 1 transmits data through wire 3, wire 3 should be connected to the receiving end of comp 2 and vice versa.


Well ,now after arranging the wires in the crossover fashion and then having the pin's clipped("pushing the pins in") its time for you to connect the two PC's manually with the wire.This should be done carefully so that the wire is concealed or is taken well above the head level if it is taken over the teracce.

..(Over here you should see a "Local Area connection" icon. If not then tyour lan card is not attached or configured properly using the drivers) Right click on the "Local area connection" and select properties from the drop down menu.It should look something like this.. http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c112/udkl_12_98/lan.jpg

If you dont have any of the above options like
Client for microsoft networks
File and printer sharing
etc etc ....

Click on the install button and install the options given in the diagram,the names may vary.Remember that you have to do this on both the comp's.
Ya almost finished!
Now highlight the last option i.e. "internet Protocol(TCP/IP) and then click on the properties tab below it.Now first of all decide which of the two comps should be the host or the server as you may call it.

For the host PC, enter the IP(Internet protocol)address as shown in the figure...
http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c112/udkl_12_98/ipaddress.jpg
and click on OK

For the client PC (the other comp) enter it like this...
http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c112/udkl_12_98/ipadress2.jpg
and click OK
We are almost their...

....click on it. Then follow the steps.
Give a name to your comp and then let the "worgroup" name be "MSHOME" which should be the default(and the same) on both the comp's.
Repeat the procedure(giving a different name of course,but the same workgroup)on the other PC.

Now restart both the comp's for the settings to be saved.

My Network Places...
The icon may also be on the desktop.
Now do the following steps...
http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c112/udkl_12_98/workgroup.jpg

You'll now see the other comp.
If you have trouble, open the DOS window from the Accecories and type
ping 192.168.1.x (where 'x' is the last IP address digit of the other comp.).You'll understand the output.

Now to share a particular file,folder or drive, right click on it and select sharing.It will now be shared with the other comp.
Thats it then!!!!!!

Am now going to see if a game works on the network....lets see...

Leave me a message if any problems.
Adios