Networking

[emcol]

Can I use 3 PC's at home and connect to one server with 1 phoneline and then surf the net individually

[ndarroch]

Simple answer - Yes. Is one of the PC's the server or is this an seperate machine? A network modem would allow you to do this - although they are quite expensive. Windows2000 allows you to share internet connections so that only one PC need have a modem. I don't know if simultaneous access is possible though - if it is, obviously the speed of access for each person will be reduced as they are sharing the same bandwidth.

[elliottg]

Yes, previous answer is quite right. Windows 98 or 2000 will allow ICS - Internet Conection Sharing. This means one PC is connected to the Internet via it's noral dial up connectuion. The other 2 are connected to the first via an Ethernet network. You'll need an Ethernet card in each PC (about �15-20 each) ,a small 5 port hub top connect them together (about �35) and some Cat-15 RJ-45 Cables to connect them up together (about �5 each). If you go to Windows Help and search for Internet Conection Sharing you'll find a step by step wizard to help you get going - it's not tricky so have a go. As previous responder said, the speed of your modem will be shared so if you're downloading files on all three it will slow down a bit. Also, the Ethernet network will mean you can share files and printers between the pc'S

[darren]

Linux can also do this. Although it's more complex to set up, the major advantages over having Windows do it are: 1. You can do it on a low-spec machine - even an old 486 is up to the task - try putting Win 98 on that. 2. Linux won't need rebooting every so often like Windows does. When the rest of the network is relying on this machine for it's network this is quite important. I used a P75 with 16MB of RAM to do this for a home network and didn't reboot it for about 6 months. Go to http://linux.com/ for more info on Linux.

[David Fox]

Another way of doing this would be to download winproxy a piece of software that allows you to connect to the internet from your sever, although the other solutions are better as winproxy can be difficult to configure a times. But they only workj if you are using 98, ME or 2000. Try www.zdnet.com to download winproxy.