Setting up a home network doesn’t have to be difficult. It also depends on what time of home network you want to install. Maybe you want to install a wired network or maybe you want to install a wireless network. It depends on the capabilities of the computers within your home as to what route you’re going to take.

The wireless network

The wireless network is probably your easiest network to install. That’s because you don’t have to hide a cord all the way around your home. As a matter of fact, you just need to have a computer that is wireless capable and a router. Seems easy enough, right? Well, it can still be a bit tricky because you have to program that router so that all of your computers can talk to it.

So let’s say that your computer is not wireless capable. What do you do now? Well, you need to get a wireless adapter to plug into the computer or you need to plug it directly into the router with an Ethernet cable. In homes with multiple computers, there is sometimes that one computer that is not wireless capable. If the others are, they can simply talk to the router from wherever they are. If they are not wireless, then Ethernet cables need to be run from those computers to the router. The router is the hub for your network.

Furthermore, you have to set up your Domain Name System so that the router knows what’s going on. You also have to set IPs and your Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol. If you don’t do these things, then your computers are not going to be talking to each other the way you want them to. They have to know who and what they are talking to in order to ensure that permission is granted. You don’t want someone to sit outside of your home on a laptop and pull off of your network. They could gain access to very personal and very sensitive information if you don’t set everything up the way that it needs to be set up. If you’re not sure how to do this, then it is time to seek professional help.

The wired network

This can be a bit more difficult than the wireless network for the simple fact that you have wires you have to hide everywhere. Everything else as far as DNS, IPs, and DHCP applies because someone on the outside could still compromise your network. Again, you don’t want that to happen. What if you have financial information on your computer? Someone could very easily get a hold of credit card and bank account numbers. So again, if you have difficulty with setting up your network, it is a good idea to look into having a professional take care of the job for you.

Once you have your network set up, you’ll be able to share files with the other computers in your home. You can share video files, music files, and so much more. It is a lot of fun to be able to share all of that information. It is almost like having external hard drives all over your home. You’re able to access information beyond your own hard drive and beyond the Internet. Those are the reasons why more and more homes are installing home networks. When something is stored into the “shared” folder on the computer, other computers are able to access it. Permissions can also be set to allow other folders to be accessed from another computer in the home. This is a good way to keep an eye on the kids and see what it is they’re downloading while on the Internet.




By: Anthony Williams Sr.

Since Cisco Certifications are always hot and the Cisco CCNA is the most popular from all, I decided to start a series of articles regarding important topics that you need to be prepared for passing the CCNA 640-802 composite exam. These topics will be also useful for people taking the two-exam option (ICND1 640-822 and ICND2 640-816).

The CCNA exam will test your ability to understand the Internet Layer of the TCP/IP model, and specifically you must be able to describe the components and structure of an IPv4 address, compare public and private addresses, differentiate between the classes of IP addresses, define the function of DHCP and DNS in IP addressing etc. So let’s see some important concepts below:

– Each internet network host (computer, router, server etc) has its own unique IP address to communicate with other hosts. It is like the unique postal address of our home. There are two versions of IP addresses available. IPv4 and IPv6. The IP version 4 type is the most common today but in the future the IP version 6 will dominate. IPv4 is a 32-bit address and IPv6 is 128-bit address.

– IP addresses can be assigned to hosts either manually or dynamically. Dynamic assignment uses the Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP).

– The purpose of DNS is so resolve domain names to IP addresses.

– An IPv4 address (32 bits) is broken into 4 sections with 8 bits each. Although the IP address is a binary number, we represent it into decimal notation.

– An IP address (IPv4) consists of the Network ID (leftmost or high-order bits) and the Host ID (rightmost or low-order bits). The subnet mask specifies what is the Network ID and what is the Host ID. For example an IP address 192.168.10.20 with subnet mask 255.255.255.0 specifies that the Network ID is 192.168.10 and the Host ID is 20. Also, an IP address 10.1.2.30 with subnet mask 255.255.0.0 specifies that the Network ID is 10.1 and the Host ID is 2.30. You get the point now.

– We have public and private IP addresses. Public addresses are always unique but private addresses can be reused in private LAN networks. The Private addresses are within the following ranges:

10.0.0.0 through 10.255.255.255 172.16.0.0 through 172.31.255.255 192.168.0.0 through 192.168.255.255

– As the number of networks grew, the IP addresses were broken into categories called classes to accommodate different sizes of networks. We have five classes of IP addresses. Class A, B, C, D, E.

– Any address that starts with a value between 1 and 126 in the first decimal octet is a Class A address. E.g 10.1.2.24 is a Class A address.

– Any address that starts with a value in the range of 128 to 191 in the first octet is a Class B address. E.g 172.16.1.27 is a Class B address.

– Any address that starts with a value in the range of 192 to 223 in the first octet, it is a Class C address. E.g 192.168.5.1 is a Class C address.

– An IP address that starts with a value in the range of 224 to 239 in the first octet is a Class D address. Class D address range is used for multicasting. E.g 224.0.0.1

– Any address that starts with a value between 240 to 255 is a Class E address. These addresses are reserved and not used anywhere.




By: Harris Andrea