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• Sharing your Resources

  
  Other than playing network games, the main reason for setting up a home network is for sharing resources such as printer and hard drive information such as files. The property that controls this is "sharing" which is found in My Computer for each "resource" accessible there including printers.
  
  Printers are rather easily shared. To share a printer, you simply go in to My Computers and Printers. Select the printer you want to share on the network, right click on the icon for the printer, select sharing and give it a name. If the sharing choice isn't on the drop down menu, you will need to go back into the Control Panel, Network, Click on the "File and Print Sharing" button and make sure that both options are selected (I want to...). When you click OK on those and exit out with an OK, Windows may want the CD again so that it can go through it file copying process … again.
  
  To use a network printer, you simply go into Printer in My Computer, add a printer, select a network printer, browse the network to the printer you want use. Then, through the magic of Windows95/98 peer-to-peer networking, you not only get the printer connection but you also get an automatic download of the printer drivers specific to that printer from the host computer (the one on which the printer is actually attached.) Isn't Windows peer networking wonderful!
  
  Drive and file sharing can be done through My Computer as well as in the Windows explorer. To share a drive or directory, you select the drive or folder you want to share to the network. Then, as in printing, you right click to get to the sharing property and give it a name. But things change a little here because you can give just Read Only access or full rights to that resource depending on password. If your other user on the network is going to need to write to your hard drive or folder, then they must have full access. In the business environment, I have used the "Depends on Password" feature but will leave the Read Only password blank so users don't need a read password but if they are going to write files, they definitely have to get my password for access to that area!
  
  For the user to get to that shared resource can take a couple routes. First is the Network Neighborhood, which is pretty easy to use. For an example, in Word97, I simply go to File Open, select Network Neighborhood and find the file I want to open and open it by selecting it.
  
  But if I want to access it from a drive letter such a K:, then I have to do what is called a mapping, which is not so easy! You can perform a network mapping from the My Computer icon (right click, Map Network Drive) or in Windows Explorer. Windows uses something similar to an Internet URL complete with the \\ but it is called a UNC name (Universal Naming Convention). To create a drive mapping on my computer to my second computer named CLINTLWP, I have to select the drive letter I want and then type in the \\CLINTLWP\C. This translates to CLINTLWP computer and C, which is the share name I used for the C drive. Notice in the graphic, that I have the "Reconnect at logon" so that I will always get that mapping when I start my computer (as long as the other computer is on.)
  
  Other uses of your home network: Internet Connections using only one modem, either by sharing one of the modems on a computer or using a product such as WinGate which allows multiple users to get on the internet at the same time. The new USB scanners can be shared as well as long as the scanner software support this use.
  
  Remember the 1934 adage, Everything is Connected!

  If you have questions or comments on this article, please feel free to email me.

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