Hints & tips

Sharing internet, files & printers

How do I share my internet connection?

The best way is to get a router with a built in DSL or cable modem. For real flexibility make sure it has several network ports and also wireless capability. This means you don’t have to have the main computer on to use the internet from another one, can use another computer in another part of the house or garden and will get an extra firewall built in to the router. Some routers even support VOIP telephony (where it’s a great advantage not having to leave a computer on all the time in case of an incoming call). It’s also possible to plug a 3G mobile USB modem into some routers.  Whatever the source of your broadband signal (land line, cable or mobile) ensure that your download limits, if any, are high enough for sharing.

If your router is wireless as well as having Ethernet ports (most are) you can then connect multiple computers (etc) via direct Ethernet cables, via wi-fi or via your mains wiring. Make sure that you set up wi-fi with a difficult to guess WPA password. 'n' wi-fi is the latest and fastest but 'g' is pretty good, eg fine for streaming music.

Powerline Homeplugs are a good way to connect computers in different rooms. They transmit data over your house mains wiring and are secure and much simpler to set up than wireless.

If you don't want to pay for a landline then you're looking at mobile broadband. Good reception can be difficult inside some buildings and you often have quite low download limits (1Gb a month doesn't go far). A good alternative to the usual USB dongles used for mobile broadband is a MiFi device, as offered in the UK by 3. This receives the mobile broadband and rebroadcasts it locally as wi-fi. That means the connection can be shared and that it's very mobile - on a trip you could leave the main computer at home and take your netbook, iTouch or whatever with the MiFi receiver.

How to share a printer?

The best way is to get a network printer. Then any computer can access it equally well even when the other(s) are switched off. I've got a cheap laser connected by wire to the router and you can also get printers which connect via wifi.

To share a printer connected to another computer find the printer under Control Panel then right click and find the share settings. Depending on which version of Windows you are running you may need to check what to do via Google. Then on another computer you just add printer and say it's on the network. It always helps to have the same network group name on every computer.

A old fashioned method is to copy what you want printed onto a memory pen and plug that into the computer with a printer. If it doesn’t have the software needed to print the file you could always turn it into a pdf on the origin computer.

How best to share files and folders?

Set the folders you wish to share as shared ones via Windows Explorer. I investigated for ages the best way of synchronising data (photos, documents, music library etc) bi-directionally across our Win7 desktop and Vista laptop  and didn't find anything free. But Allway Sync costs very little and is just brilliant. You install it on one machine and point it at the shared folders you want to keep in synch. Then I just run it as and when, eg after ripping a new CD or processing some new photos or updating a website. In no time it shows you the differences on the two machines then synchronises them across the network. It deals well with renames, deletions and moved files as well as new files and folders. Invaluable, as I do not have to keep track of what I've changed on whch computer and can use either to make real changes to photos, websites etc.

You can also share files and folders by getting a NAS (Network Attached Storage) device with all your photos etc to share across different computers. I don't like that approach because it means a laptop has no data when taken elsewhere and the synchronisation alternative means you're automatically keeping a good backup by keeping the data folders synchronised on two or more computers.

The only thing Allway Sync cannot do for me is to let me run Outlook on the two computers and synchronise within the Outlook database file (pst). For that I bought Synchpst - not that fancy an interface but it works pretty well.