I did a search on this and didn’t find anything, so I apologize if this has already been brought up. How do I connect two PC’s together. Using their modems is out of the question; the files I want to transfer are 100 MB or more. I want to transfer stuff from my laptop to my desktop. Is it possible to connect them through their USB ports, and if so how? I don’t want to spend too much money so I’m not going to buy a CD-RW for my laptop. Any ideas gang?
What you want is some software called Laplink.
Here is a link to one place that sells the stuff. I didn’t do price comparisons for you so I have no idea if their cost of around $160 is competitive or not. Also, don’t forget to buy a cable to go with it. I remember that not having the proper cable was a constant problem back when I used Laplink.
Just so you know…I haven’t used this software in ages. I have no idea if it works via a USB port or not. If it doesn’t the parallel and serial connections work but they are VERY slow (around 112K/sec or about twice the speed of a dial-up modem). I would hope they’ve joined the 21[sup]st[/sup] century and provided a USB connection which is fairly speedy.
This has been covered several times in the past so I won’t go into many details. Besides the Direct cable connection DCC which sucks, the easiest way is to get a USB thinghie which cost something like $25. There are many brands and types. I have the Entrega USBnet but Entrega was bought by some other company and I can’t remember who. The product is still out there. Another one is Belkin and I saw another different one at COMPUSA just a few days ago for about $25. There are plenty of similar products. Just go to your computer stire and ask or search the Net.
There’s no super, super cheap, really fast way to connect the notebook and desktop PC. A USB transfer cable and software is probably your best bet and they are around 40-50 (see link). Network hardware and a crossover cable for the notebook and the desktop would be a better long term solution (and fastest) but that would run about 60-80 for all three items PC Card NI (50) PCI NI (20) crossover cable (5-10).
You can get a 3 parallel port laplink type parallel port data cable but 100 megs would take all night with that setup. http://www.cyberguys.com "Can't find your original, yellow, parallel Laplink® cable? Here is your chance to get all the extra parallel 8' Laplink® cables you need at a very special price. Item# 120 0500" 2.66
http://www.buslink.com/usbtrans.htm 49.95
"Easily transfer files from one machine to another with BUSlink USB File transfer Cable. BUSlink Vs Laplink BUSlink USB Transfer cable has been proven to transfer files up to five times faster than the parallel cables and up to seven times faster than the serial cables.The BUSlink file manager will detect both local and remote PC. Allow you to cut, copy, paste, or drag files and folders. You can also print text or document files form the remote PC to your local printer by one click. Easy drag-and-drop files between two-split screen.
Features
True plug-n-play easy installation Maximum data transfer rate at 6 Mbps. Hot Swap capability Power management and remote wake up function. Full compliant with USB specification 6" cable length. System Requirements IBM PC or compatible 486 system or higher. USB port on each PC
Windows 98 or Windows 95 with USB support."
if that link doesn’t work for you, go to http://www.belkin.com/ , under products click on USB, then, at the bottom of the next page networking then USB Direct Connect F5U104 which is the item you are looking for. The listed price is $79.95 but you can get it for less and there are other competing products
If you want to do this type of thing regularly, I’d recommend getting non-USB network adapters, for both speed and price. For the laptop, you can get name brand PC card ethernet adapters for $20 (or 10/100mbit for $30), and for the desktop, you can get a PCI card for even less (ok, this shocked even me: Hewlett-Packard 10/100 cards from consumerdepot for $4). Pricewatch.com is a really good resource for finding the best prices if you want to mail order stuff.
Making a long story longer: ethernet comes in 10 megabit and 100 megabit flavors, the 100 megabit being 10 times as fast. USB ethernet adapters are “10 megabit” ethernet, but they can really only transfer data at around 1 megabit. They’re also a little more expensive. The nice part is that they’re dirt simple to install.
In general, you can plug 10 megabit and 100 megabit devices together, and the 100 megabit devices will slow down to 10 megabit automatically. There are some devices that won’t do this, but anything advertised as “10/100” is safe.
After hooking the hardware up, you’ll need to configure your network, but I’m not going to go into that. When you get there, try to figure it out, and if you have trouble, we’ll be happy to help.
What on earth kind of computer is (are) it Junchbailey? You can do it for free with Briefcase or other Windows crap, just read the windows manuals assuming you have a PC, Im sure KK come in soon wondering why it matters if its a PC or a Mac.
Well briefcase still leaves the problem of connecting the computers. You sure as hell can’t briefcase a hundred megabytes on a floppy disk.
My personal choice would be to network them. You can get a “kit” from Comp USA that includes 2 network cards, 2 cables, and a 5-port hub for about $59. The software you need to share files is built into windows.
That’s probably the cheapest solution, and I think it’s better too, because it’s a network, and you can always add more computers to it.
That’s what I liked about old mac’s: all you needed was a spare printer cable (just unhook from your printer), plug one end into either computer’s modem or printer port. Turn on appleshare and you’re set. Pretty darn slick, if you ask me. Gol darn newfangled pc’s…
slortar, that’s fine and dandy and you can do it on a PC as well but, as has been pointed out the speed is very limited.
galt, while you are correct I use a USB net for several reasons. One is that I carry it with my laptop and I can connect to any computer which has USB which is very convenient for me. Also some people prefer not to have to open their computers to install stuff
The USB solution is a pretty good one
The cheapest solution would probably be Ethernet. Computer geeks has a PCMCIA 10Mb 3com card for $14 and an IBM Etherjet ISA PNP card for $4.50. With two computers you can skip the hub, just find a crossover cable (pricewatch has several listed for about $8 shipped) or get someone to make one for you (it’s not difficult). Total outlay: probably around $35.
I forgot that one of them is a laptop when I posted my reply. haha
Well Joe, I usually use a Zip Drive for laptop files.
I found this USB cable online for $30. BAFO DIRECT-LINQ
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- Okay, how about this one: I want to hook up two computers to be able to test distributed/remote apps in C++/Java. There are utilities that can do this all on one PC, but I would kinda like to see it really work.
-Can I get some webspace on my ISP and do this stuff, so I can show prospective employers my awesome technical skills over the internet? Do ISP’s let you do this stuff on their server? If yo write crap code, can you hang/crash your ISP’s server?
?[I once met a CGIPerl hack who had his own box at his ISP, so he could run whatever he wanted on it. Back then I didn’t have the forsight to ask if this was necessary or not.]
— If not, I have a new computer running Win98+Linux and a aged 586/90Mhz that has Win95 on it.
A few facts:
-I don’t have any Win95 source CD, so I can’t do much with the Win95 on the old machine (it asks you for the CD if you install or remove anything), and I don’t need the Win95 for running anything at all. -So I have to put Win98 or Linux on the old beater to use it as a file server. The old machine wouldn’t have to run anything except possibly a modem, and the modem it has is hardware, so Linux isn’t a problem.
-I only have one phone line, so I can’t dial out on one and in to the other. Are there cables I can use to simulate a internet connection between the two? - MC
- Okay, how about this one: I want to hook up two computers to be able to test distributed/remote apps in C++/Java. There are utilities that can do this all on one PC, but I would kinda like to see it really work.
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