Home networking

[vlv8vic]

Need some ideas on home networking. At this point i still only have dial-up and wont be changing that for a little while. Either way some kind of BASIC networking would be nice.

Knowing nothing about it i thought i would pitch at you guys what i have and what i want to do and see what churns out the other end!

I have - a pretty old desktop PC running XP with a bit of spare memory, built in dial-up modem and some kind of network card (ethernet port?). this machine is stuck in a back bedroom where it is out of sight and too cold far from civilisation to get much use.

The other machine is a macbook, straight out of the box. No dial-up capabilities without a mac modem. It does have airport though.

Here's what i would ideally love to have and be able to do-
Connect the XP bomb to my cheapo dialup internet and have it network with the mac so i can wirelessly access the bomb in the backroom with the mac in the rest of the house.

Failing that i can run a blue cable (cat5?) from the XP to the mac and share internet and printers that way.

Any thoughts or plans? Can a PC actually share with a mac?

All help appreciated.

(also have a really old win2000 laptop that's good for nothing other than a bit of internet browsing through the plasma as it has a screwed screen - maybe it can hook in somehow too! it only has a network card - no wireless).

 

[holdensupporter2005]

Not really worth sharing a dialup connection, although it can be done. As slow as dialup is, if you have someone on a second computer browsing / downloading, both computers would be unbearable slow.

I am not a Mac person but I would say it would be easy to share a dialup connection from the XP machine. You will need a crossover cable (Usually Red) to connect the xp and mac.
Then on the PC you can go into the properties of your dialup connection and click on the advanced tab. There is settings that you can share the internet connection. When you turn this on, it will change the IP address of the XP machine to 192.168.0.1 on the Mac, you will need to set the IP address to 192.168.0.2 and the Gateway on the Mac to 192.168.0.1

Then when you have the dialup connection connected on the xp pc, the mac will have internet access also.

 

[vlv8vic]

Cool thanks for that, yeah there wouldn't be any sharing of the connection as the whole point of setting the mac up is to make use of the wireless and get my cold arse out of the back office.

 

[Astranomical]

Not really worth sharing a dialup connection, although it can be done. As slow as dialup is, if you have someone on a second computer browsing / downloading, both computers would be unbearable slow.

I am not a Mac person but I would say it would be easy to share a dialup connection from the XP machine. You will need a crossover cable (Usually Red) to connect the xp and mac.
Then on the PC you can go into the properties of your dialup connection and click on the advanced tab. There is settings that you can share the internet connection. When you turn this on, it will change the IP address of the XP machine to 192.168.0.1 on the Mac, you will need to set the IP address to 192.168.0.2 and the Gateway on the Mac to 192.168.0.1

Then when you have the dialup connection connected on the xp pc, the mac will have internet access also.

Actually, Windows Internet Connection Sharing actually sets the XP box up as a DHCP server, so all you need to do to the Mac is to set it to receive an IP address via DHCP, and when you connect the two computers, the Mac should pick up an IP address, so long as you've got the PC booted with Internet Connection Sharing enabled.

If you want to set up a wireless network, you'll need to buy a wireless access point. I use an AirPort Express on my network, which does the job rather nicely, and allows me to wirelessly stream music to the sound system, too. :thumbsup:

 

[Niggadore]

Dial-Up? Faaaark that!
I cannot stand it, although it's very very good if you're on a budget and don't download movies/music etc..

 

[vlv8vic]

yeah dont bother with music and movies. Rarely have time to watch them anyway.
The update is i now have the mac roaming on dial-up and it seems to be running ok for the regular things.
Dimwit are Hardly Normals told me it wasn't possible so i shelled out for the router anyway and with a bit of ****ing around it work fairly easily. Nice to ditch cords.

Interested in your streaming music, govz?! how's that set up?

 

[Astranomical]

Basically, my wireless access point is an Apple AirPort Express. The AirPort Express has a 1/8" minijack on it for line out, which you can connect to a stereo with a standard patch cable, the same type you'd use if you were to connect your computer directly to the stereo. From there, once you set up the AirPort Express using the setup program Apple gives you (if you're using a Mac, it'll already be in the Utilities folder under Applications, or if you're using Windows, it'll be on the CD Apple gives you), and have it running on your network, a little drop down menu appears at the bottom right hand corner of the iTunes window, which allows you to play your music on either the speakers on your computer, or the AirPort Express (or both, if you want to do it that way)

As for my network setup, I've got a TP-LINK 10/100 8 port switch downstairs, as well as my desktop computers. I run a 15 metre Cat5e cable upstairs to the lounge room, where I have the AirPort Express connected to the sound system, which I use to play music from iTunes, and so that I can access my network from the MacBook, which I'll typically use upstairs.