|
|
Setting up a small Lan to access one modem, all simultaneously I think has got to be
one of the best aspects about having an account with an ISP. More than one person
'wanting to have a turn' used to be a case of 'take it in turns'. Not now.
Earlier in the network setup you were introduced to ip addresses. This is where they really come into importance. A Win 95 peer to peer Lan can operate OK with an automaitcally assigned ip address. But this is not practical if machines 2 and 3 need to access machine 1 if the unique number keeps changing.
To check the ip address of a machine, rather than go into network setup, click start, run, then type in winipcfg.exe. This will give you the ip address of your network adapter. The first thing to ensure all machines can contact each machine by its number is to go to a DOS prompt and 'ping' each machine. If this test performs successfully, you are half way there.
The scenario for 2 PC's with the ip addresses used earlier would be to go to PC 1. Remember PC 1 being the one with the modem on it. The ip address we used for PC 1 is 192.168.1.1. So PC 1 would have to contact PC 2 by typing in at the dos prompt ping 192.168.1.2 . PC 2 will need to be able to contact PC 1 by issueing ping 192.168.1.1 .To test what the results should look like, you can ping the diagnostic number which will ping itself. The cammand for this is ping 127.0.0.1 .If at any stage you get a response of 'request timed out' this means that contact with the other machine via its ip address was not successfull.
If everything has worked successfully up to this point, you are ready for the next stage. This will involve downloading some software off the web to act as a 'virtual proxy server'. Some of these are freeware, and others are shareware. I have had mixed results with some. Some seem to work for a while, then have to be reset (software only) for the other PC to have continued access.
The link below goes to the home page for VSOCKS Light. I have found this software entirely reliable, and is perfect for the home user.
Go to VSOCKS Light Web Site ...
