What is the environment you're working with, your budget, and what do you intend to accomplish when all is said and done?
Large house two story, basically just share the connection. I am thinking that Wi-Fi would be the way to go. For a budget, really I have no idea when it comes to networking, cheap would be ideal though. Cheers,
Basically, you just need a wireless router to centralize your Internet connection, then the appropriate network adapters in each PC you want to connect. Something fundamentally like this: Hardwired networks are faster, safer and more reliable, so my advice is to prefer wired networking wherever you can. Having the router in close physical proximity to computers you want hardwired is the best option, since you won't need to run long cables. For systems where hardwiring is impractical, or for systems that will roam like laptops, use wireless-G compatible hardware and WPA encryption. WPA's not bulletproof, but it is enough to ward off the casual bandwidth stealing and eavesdropping you can expect from those in close proximity to wireless networks. Don't even bother with WEP, as it is laughably insecure.
You should take that point very seriously, 'laughably insecure' sums it up quite nicely... My personal best for breaking into my own network (When using WEP) was 1 minute 40 seconds. When you are setting up WPA you will have to choose a passkey, make sure this is NOT a simple password or dictionary word... a good passkey should contain numbers and symbols (and letters ), an easy way to do this is to replace a few letters with numbers or symbols (ie replace e or E with 3, N with |\| etc) and insert some punctuation. For example, starting with the word 'Nutrition' i would end up with something like |\|u72iti0n Please feel free to ask anything if you have any problems PS welcome to hardwareforums!
