Congratulations on planning to buy one computer for each member of your family.

The computers can be installed in their individual rooms.

They must be well interconnected so that files can be shared from one computer to others.

This connecting is called home networking. You can share data and multimedia files among your computers in your home network. You can monitor your kid's action in the next room by using webcams.

You can watch a movie from your media PC connected to the TV in the master bedroom.  The home network resembles a spider web.

A series of lines called routers connect the computers at end points called nodes. Signals consisting of interesting information for the user, pass through the routers and nodes. Computers connected in the above network send or receive signals in the form of packets.

Software and hardware used in the network pass those packets of signals.

Control commands are used before and after your data to direct the routers to identify the device where the data has to be sent. PCs on the home network are interconnected either with Ethernet Cat-5-6 cables or wireless radio beams.

Of late, the wireless option has become less complicated and inexpensive. For building a home network in the wired system you have to purchase Ethernet Cat-5-6 cables of lengths required to connect all the PCs in your home located in different rooms. These PCs can be commonly connected to laser color printer or a fax machine.

A hub, switch or a router is required for plugging cables to the computers. The switch has better function than a hub. A router though costlier has maximum features.

It is a must for connecting the internet to your PC. Adapters are required for fitting into computers, color printer and fax machine which are to be interconnected in home network.

For installing a home network, you are recommended to use Ethernet Network Interface Cards with speeds ranging between 10 Mb or 100 Mb for wired network. In case of wireless option, 802.11 (B or G,N) wireless N cards are recommended.

There is not much of difference in price and efficiency between the two methods. You can use the manual which is simple for the fresher and setup hardware. Each PC device finds its place in the rooms of each family member and accessories like color printer or fax machine can be kept in the hall, all interconnected with cable or wireless.  

Each device taking part in home network is designated with one internet protocol (IP address). It’s a simple dotted octet number like 192.168.0.1 which can be given to the router.

This router is the central hub connected to various devices of home network. IP addresses of other devices may look like 92.168.0.2,192.168.0.3 etc. Each IP address is specific for each device and packets of information are sent using these IP addresses so as to reach the intended device.

A home network enables all the members of your family to share the printer and fax machine, otherwise providing printer for each PC is a costly affair.  

Its safe to install software and hardware known as firewall. The firewall filters and blocks untrusted software sources and data and allows only signals from trusted source.

Routers themselves contain inherent firewall functions. Routers can function as a server among the different devices in your home network. Without sacrificing the optimal speed of the individual devices, an internet broadband connection can be centrally incorporated in your home network.