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| Joined: | Mon Jun 26th, 2006 |
| Location: | Finland |
| Posts: | 1248 |
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Anyway, a NAT style router will give plenty of protection with the firewall disabled too. Computers in your LAN will be allocated private area IP addresses in the style of 192.168.0.X where X is between 1 and 254. One of the X values is reserved as the router private IP that will work as your LAN gateway address.
It definitely isn't a good idea to put a computer on a direct public address - various vermin are packed right around and rushing in. A software firewall could be used, but I dislike them because they sometimes take up a lot of system resources and often need complicated configuration.
Almost any type of RJ45 Ethernet adapter will work in your favor. If your PC is from 2003 or later it is likely that it has an onboard adapter, and no expansion card is needed for that. On windows XP, little or no configuration is usually required, but some newer card brands will require their own driver software. RealTek 81xx family chipset based cards are fine and mostly work right off after installation.
If you decide to bring home an older computer to be joined to the network, and it has got an RJ45 jack for network connection, make sure it is an Ethernet adapter and not IBM Token Ring. These two systems aren't compatible, even though many businesses have used their old TR wiring as 10mbps Ethernet. There were still plenty TR based businesses around a few years ago, and some may still exist. So, if acquiring used computers from auctions etc, even some quite new equipment can occasionally still have TR cards installed.
Last edited on Sun Mar 4th, 2007 10:46 am by Keinokuorma
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"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home."
- Ken Olson, Digital Equipment Corporation (1977)