Sharing Printers and CD and Hard Drives
The capability to share peripherals is another good reason to
set up a network. Any printer connected to a computer on your network can be
shared by any other computer on the network. In addition, you can use a hardware
device, called a printer server, to share a printer on your network without
connecting the printer to a PC. Some wireless access points include a port on
the back of the device for sharing a printer (see Figure 1.8).
When you set up your network, you can share any drive from any
computer on the network. For instance, you can install a software program from a
CD-ROM in a desktop computer on a wirelessly connected laptop elsewhere in your
house. Or, from your desktop computer, you can access a file stored on the hard
drive of a laptop. The files on the hard drive of a networked computer appear in
a folder, just as they would on your local hard drive. You can see two shared
computers on a network in Figure 1.9.
Double-clicking a computer's icon will display all of its shared folders and
peripherals, such as printers.
You can also share peripherals including scanners, which
require special software to use them over a network. UMAX, for example, sells
network-ready scanners (not all scanners are made to be used over a network). On
the multimedia front, you can purchase network-ready MP3 (audio file) players,
such as those from Panasonic and Compaq, which act a bit like a digital jukebox.
You can listen to your favorite music, in digital MP3 format, on any computer
connected to your network.
After setting up your wireless network, you can generally get
more for your money by sharing peripherals rather than buying new ones to
connect to each computer. And transmitting data by radio waves beats carrying
floppies and CD-ROMs around any day. Setting up a LAN to share files and
peripheral access works the same way with a wireless or wired network, and the
networking features of Windows make it all quite simple.
Sections
