Peachy Posted October 3, 2003 Share Posted October 3, 2003 Let me inaugurate this posting by explaining why. Quite a few members have setup home LANs to make filesharing amongst two or more computers easy to manage or for sharing internet connections. But what about the other uses of home LANs? Nobody ever talks about the things you can do with your home LAN for fun and profit; well, maybe not for profit. Anyway, if anyone else has any fun, amusing, serious things they've managed to do with their home LAN, then post away.To begin, my home LAN topology is based around my Linksys BEFRS41 4-port firewall/switch. Internet connection provided by a Alcatel SpeedTouch DSL modem. There is an uplink to another 5-port Linksys switch to add more connections to the network. For this trick, I've enlisted the help of my trusty little Pentium 233 MMX box running Windows 2000 Server. Besides being the network's DHCP server it acts as a Terminal Server in administrative mode. Big deal, you say, you can administer the server over the LAN. Well, with the help of IIS and an ActiveX control called Remote Desktop Web Connection or Terminal Web Services, for short, you can use a web server to, get this, host Remote Desktop sessions! Since it's an ActiveX control you do require IE 5 or higher. Windows XP version for IIS 5.1 also works on Windows 2000 and Windows NT 4 IIS.Remote Desktop Web Connection 5.2.3790What advantage would this have over using the Remote Desktop Connection client that comes with Windows XP? Well, if you're running Windows 2000 or Windows 9x you don't have to install the client. And while both methods can allow for multiple remote desktop connections, the CPU usage in the case of the web connection would probably be less intense than with the client, although I haven't measured that yet. And like the client, you can transport sound across the LAN. So, say your local CD drive is in use with a data CD but you want to play a music CD at the same time, just pop the music CD in the remote computer and let the music play over the network!Screenshot of remote XP desktop playing music CD Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
siebkens Posted October 3, 2003 Share Posted October 3, 2003 Home networking - fun? AAAAAAAArrrrghhhhhhhhhhhh!!! I do have a home network & it has been fun learning about it & it is incredibly useful. I couldn't do without it because of ICS, printer, file, bookmark & address book sharing, but it has quirks that are nearly enough to send me around the bend. I have a 3 computer network with a switch. Using Windows ICS to share internet connection, 1 shared printer on a secondary computer. Share Documents, downloaded files & internet settings from my main machine running XP. Share a few other files on my secondary computers. 2 secondary computers running Win ME. Latest problem: My ME computers keep losing the IP address that I assigned to them - TCP/IP properties mysteriously change to: Obtain an IP address automatically. I have disabled DHCP.Computer 1 TCP/IP (main) set to 192.168.0.1 subnet mask 255.255.255.0 - 192.168.0.1 is also my default gateway for ICS for my secondary computers.Computer 2 TCP/IP was set to 192.168.0.2 same subnet mask. Have now manually changed to 192.168.0.12. Computer 3 TCP/IP was set to 192.168.0.3 same subnet mask. Have now manually changed to 192.168.0.13.Running NIS firewall on all computers. Ran NIS wizard to allow LAN access. Have disabled to test connectivity & NIS doesn't seem to be the problem. XP Firewall disabled for LAN. Tried to share my download files on my XP machine without sharing C drive (for security purposes) but I can't seem to make this happen. <sigh>--------------------The networking Sieb Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeber Posted October 3, 2003 Share Posted October 3, 2003 In all the time I've worked with, read about, and talked about computers...this is the first time I have ever seen the words "networking" and "fun" used in the same sentence without a negative adjective inserted somewhere. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RandomBox Posted October 8, 2003 Share Posted October 8, 2003 Vote for jeber and he will guarantee a chicken in every pot and errrrrrr TWO hubs in every household!Has anyone attempted to connect two hubs (or NICs/LAN cards) back to back and cause a crazy do-loop that smokes the entire system? Is this even worth a trial? Now that could be FUN!btw jeber, could the word you were looking for possibly be an oxymoron for "fun+network"! Peachy can sell ice cream to eskimos with subject lines like that ................. it sure got my attention! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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