Ok, I’ve got two computers, one XP Pro, the second XP Home. I can only have one connected to the internet at a time. Computer two has a CD burner, but I really don’t want to waste as many CD’s as it would take to move the ~10 gigs of stuff I need to move. Besides, some of the files are over a gig apiece.
I have no means of making a random home network here, or transferring across a network. (I suppose that if I went and got a hub, I could use AIM to transfer them…)
I could, maybe, take computer2’s HD out and mount it in computer 1, (I don’t know… are laptop hd’s IDE?), but I’m really looking for a convenient way to move stuff in the future, also, without having to install/uninstall hds.
I know something exists… something something crossover cable… Is that what I need?
Someone named me is an idiot. The title of the thread should read “Easy way to get files from one to computer to another?” or something similar. If any passersby would report my post, that’d be neat.
Once you connect both computers to the hub/switch (they do both have ethernet jacks, right?) you can use Windows file sharing or a dozen other methods to move files of arbitrary size.
A hub and a switch are both devices for networking computers.
The dumbed down explanation (i.e., the one I understand) is that with a hub, the bandwidth is shared among all connected computers - so if it’s a 10 mbps hub, each connected computer gets a slice of that same pie. With a switch, every computer gets the full bandwidth - 10 mbps each, in this case. Switches are better than hubs. Does anyone know of any disadvantages of switches compared to hubs?
In theory, for wireless networking you need three things:
(1) A wireless access point
(2) A router / hub (depending on whether you want to reach the outside world (Internet) or not.)
(3) A wireless network card in each computer you want to connect.
Nowadays, (1) and (2) are usually combined into a single device, known as a wireless router (which usually can function as a “wired” hub too.)
I have a school network, where we’re not allowed to have routers (apparently. I don’t know enough about routers to make it to where they can’t tell that I have one.)
We can, however, have switches and/or hubs. And they will work, apparently. (I have friends who have their two computers set up with one.
I have a laptop with wireless. And a desktop, which I plan on giving wireless capabilities.
Probably “not allowed to have routers” means, “not allowed to have routers connected to the Internet, where you can get viruses, spyware and other cooties.” A router is an innocent enough device used for connecting two networks (e.g. your school’s network and the Internet). It’s only when you use it to connect yourself to the big bad Internet, or some other untrusted network, that it becomes a risk.
Well, ideally, I’d love to have both computers connected to the internet at the same time, preferably with wireless capabilities. It sounds like if I used the router, I wouldn’t be able to access the internet while connected to it.
You don’t need to use AIM to share over a hub or crossover cable, just (turn off your internet connection first! and then) set the workgroups the same and open up the whole drives on each to sharing. Each PC shows up on the other’s “network places” or whatever. The time I tried this with 10/100 ethernet hubs and a router, it wasn’t really fast, I’d say it was slightly faster than burning disks would have been–but it was definitely less effort on my part to use the network transfer. Afterwards you just have to remember to disable all the sharing again.
Alternately if you have any decent-sized spare good hard drive around or can score one real cheap, for $25 or so you can get a USB port external enclosure for the hard drive. The external hard drive isn’t limited by the 6-foot length of the crossover cable, and doesn’t require messing with sharing and unsharing drives. It really wins for convenience overall.
Laptop drives are not the same size or connection as desktop drives, there are adaptors available (to use laptop drives on desktop computers) but that laptop drive might be buried under a bunch of tiny scews and brackets.
~
Why do you think that? If your router is connected to the Internet (via a cable/DSL modem or some other means), any computer that can “see” the router, over wireless or ethernet cables, will be able to get to the Internet, as long as the router hasn’t been set up to disallow it (e.g. MAC address filtering). Also, computer connected to the router will be able to see each other- they will all have “private” IP addresses, probably something like 10.0.0.2 or 192.168.0.3.
I have an enclosure, and there are 2 hard drives in the desktop. The only problem is that I don’t want to have to take an hd out, put it in the enclosure, attach to laptop, put it back in desktop, etc.
It sounds like this hub/switch thing is the way to go… I just want to be able to do it wirelessly.
Oh. I guess that I had misinterpreted what you had said before. When you say “see the router”, do you mean that the school could see it? I’ve heard horror stories about people messing the network up by hooking up routers (like someone on our end of the hall last year who knocked out the network to our building for a few hours.)
You could conceivably run a backend around the other hardwired methods by finding an online file storage “harddrive” like [URL=http://www.xdrive.com/partners/?p=google&gcid=go_ofile_stoonl_txt_1]x-drive. Upload from one, download to the other. Of course, it’s a bit old fashioned and is entirely dependant on a fast connection.
Yeah, switches are good. As an aside, My guess why routers are banned is in case someone connects the LAN side to the school network and the thing starts taking everyone’s DHCP requests.
If it’s not too much trouble, you could get a 1GB flash drive, which would give you mebbe 10 round trips but you’d have something useful afterwards. I put all my e-mail on my flash drive using Portable Thunderbird, and now I can see all my e-mails anywhere I go!
Or, you could spring for an iPod, which does second duty as a reasonably good portable HD. An extra $30 gets you a USB-Firewire split cable; plug the Firewire end into the AC unit, and the USB end into your USB port. Works like a charm; I use this config for major file movements.
Networking is the fastest, but can also be a female dog to get working correctly.
Hubs, Switches, and Routers:
A hub is just a dumb little Ethernet crossover in a box. When you connect computers to a hub, all of their packets go to every other computer on the hub. That’s usually OK, but do it with too many computers and you’ll drive your network to its knees.
A switch is a little bit better. Switches track MAC addresses and IPs, so they can move packets to the right computer more quickly (the MAC address is the “real” address of your computer/your computer’s ethernet hardware, the IP address can be translated to it). So a switch sends your packet only to the computer that needs it. But if the router can’t figure out where the packet is supposed to go, it sends it to everyone. That may cause problems with packets going outside your LAN to the internet.
A router combines the switch with even more smarts. If the packet belongs on your local network, then the router keeps it on the network, otherwise it sends it out to other LANs or the Internet.
Most networks ban hubs because hubs are too stupid to keep unwanted traffic off the wires. By the time you’ve paid for a switch for a small LAN, you might as well get a router. My guess is that most schools discourage routers to prevent people from running their own LANs. There’s nothing worse for an already-overworked IT person than having newbie network admins futzing around.
You can now buy reasonably priced “home” routers that include wireless access points, packet-level hardware firewalls, eight ethernet ports, and VPN support. :eek: When I was a boy, that would have been the hardware for an entire company! Of course, when I was a boy, we programmed computers by candlelight, using punch cards…
