Network Your Computers

摘要

You can share files with other computers in your home via e-mail or by carting your data around on a USB flash drive, but it's inconvenient, especially when you want to share a folder containing a couple of hundred vacation photos that are each several megabytes in size. By networking your PCs together, however, you can share entire folders of files, directly access files on another PC, or drag and drop files between computers. Depending on whether you're connecting desktops or laptops, and how close they'll be, you can opt for a wired or wireless connection. Wired connections offer the best speed-up to 1 gigabit of data per second-and the least expensive setup. Wireless (or Wi-Fi) connections are slower (rated at 54 to 300 megabits per second, depending on whether you're using an 802.11g or 802.11n network), cost slightly more to set up, and require you to configure security correctly to protect your network.