Family Connections

Is there such a thing as safe, family-oriented computing? I believe there is.

'Safe' is, of course, a relative term. Once you connect your computer to the internet, there are many dangers, such as these, that you need to educate yourself about. If you are part of a family with more than one computer in the house, you can substantially improve your family's safety, and vastly improve the quality of your family's computing life, by installing a home network.

From a safety perspective, a home network allows you to put all your family's computers behind a hardware "firewall" that prevents miscreants from getting access to the contents of your hard disks. You can install virus protection software that protects the whole family at once from the latest outbreak.

Installing a home network used to be a very big deal. You had to run wire all over the house and hunker down to a good bit of research about alternative ways to set up a network. To be at all civilized, you had to put new outlets in the walls, and buy special tools to painstakingly wire up the outlets. You had to buy a network hub or switch, install networking and firewall software, and then try to coax all of it into working together. Or, you had to spend a good chunk of change getting someone else to do it for you.

It is now possible to substantially simplify all of this by substituting a wireless router for the hub/switch, and buying wireless network cards for each computer. Look, Mom! No Wires! Wireless network speeds are now quite acceptable, the software is easier to set up, and the equipment has all become reasonably inexpensive. The router is the public face of your network, and the individual computers hiding behind it can't be accessed from outside your network (without your explicit intent.)

With a home network in place, you can enjoy many benefits:

• Share your broadband connection. The most obvious advantage of a home network is that all of the computers in the network can share the same broadband connection and access the internet simultaneously. Dad no longer has to wait for Billy to finish his game of networked Intergalactic Death to download his stock quotes. Suzie can research her homework on the internet while Mom is sending an email.
• Share printers. In our family, we have an inexpensive laser printer, and a combination color printer/copier/scanner, which we all can share over the network.
• Share files and disk space. Behind a hardware firewall, it is safe to allow file sharing among family members. You can put everyone's digital music and digital photos in one place, if you like -- perhaps on the computer with the largest disk -- and let everyone else share it from there. You no longer have to use floppies to copy a file from one computer to another.
• Common network security. Companies like TREND Micro offer software that protects all the computers in the network against viruses, spyware, wireless network intrusion, and more. Using their "PC-cillin Home Security Pack," you can protect up to three PC's for about $90, or five PC's for $150.
• Remote access. If you have Windows XP Professional, you can use an inexpensive laptop computer to remotely access other PC's in your network -- say, from the poolside. Your laptop suddenly acquires all the capabilities and resources of the remote computer, incuding, for example, your email account. You no longer have to think about moving files between your laptop and your desktop computer, just so you can do your work in the chaise lounge while sipping an umbrella drink.

A home-network-enabled laptop tends to wander around the house, getting used for different things. Ours mostly hangs out in the living room, where we look up words and historical facts when they come up in conversation, or while watching a baseball game on TV, get the batting stats of the guy at the plate, or shop for stuff on the internet. And, of course, we Google incessantly.

If you don't have a home network, and you want to have one, there are some good resources on the internet to get you started (including information about how to find a home network installer, should you wish to avoid the hassle of doing it yourself.) One of my favorites is HomeNetHelp, which has everything from "Starter Stuff" to "Beyond the Basics." It tells you what you need to shop for, provides product reviews, tells you even more things you can do with your home network, and tells you all of it in one well-organized web site. Google "Home Networks" to find a whole host of other resources.

If you haven't set up a home network for your family, yet, do take another peek at the possibilities. You may like what you see.

Power to the people.

T.I.N.