If you have more than one computer in your house have you ever considered creating a network to connect them to each other? So each can communicate, share devices attached by local ports or even share simple files or applications. I hadn't really considered setting up a network until I got a laptop, but recently I found myself using my laptop and wanting to use devices such as printer, but of course these are connected to my PC! I could simply plug the USB into the back of my laptop but what if I was doing work downstairs on the sofa on my laptop and I need to print something? Sure like I said I could walk upstairs and plug the printer USB into the back of my laptop. But that would mean I would be forever walking around with my laptop and having to plug things in and out when a laptop is a portable computer! Kind of defeats the object of having one. But to solve this I've created a small home network between my PC and Laptop.

By creating a network I can access certain devices such as my printer all around the house, which is good as it just shows how good the wireless factor really is. My laptop doesn't have any devices connected to it (Well maybe occassionally my External Hard Drive) but nothing else like printers, scanners and what not. My laptop connects to the internet via my Belkin Router and it accesses files and devices over the network. You maybe thinking, yeah great James, but this isn't exactly new. Your absolutely right it's not but im basically writing this article to show the benefits of a home network, when or if you should set one up and many good reasons why.

My network is small but say if a friend who comes round to stay and they've brought there laptop, there laptop could be joined into your workgroup or domain which you have setup and once thats done they can then join your network and share the devices such as printer. Maybe your working on some massive project, trust me the wireless factor is bliss.

Networks specifically on Windows are also quite easy to set up and very flexible around different operating systems on various machines you have, take my example. My Main PC bless it was born with Windows XP and looks like it's going to die with it, but my Toshiba Laptop has Windows Vista Ultimate installed. But because of the different operating systems this doesn't stop both machines communicating with each other. Both my PC and laptop can access each other. Which shows thats Windows Vista has good backwards compatibility which I am very thankful for! After all most of us would be pretty stuffed if we couldn't connect computers with different operating systems.

Anyway here's five reasons why you should be setting up a home network if you have more than one computer in your home.

1. On a network you are able to share just about anything. Devices such as printers, scanners etc will become avaliable to any machine attached to the workgroup or domain of the network. Meaning you can really neutralise the wireless factor and print documents without wires and even down to basics browse the internet without wires.

2. Being able to neutralise a shared area on your network is a great advantage of networking. Not everyone may do this but I have a seperate area on my network where I save all my work such as word documents, website development etc and then share this area with every machine attached to my network, that way I can access my files on both machines and not have to use my USB memory stick to keep opening and saving files on.

3. This is more of great use for me but I have applications like phpDesigner and Adobe Photoshop, but don't want the hassle of having to install the programs on both my main PC and laptop. Instead I install the programs as normal on my Main PC and the set Windows to share these applications on my network. This allows my laptop to also have these programs but instead of installing them on both machines the laptop is simply running the application off the network. This is great for saving disk space on my laptop hard drive. See the picture below:

Both machines have safari on there screen, but only one computer has Safari installed on it's hard drive. The Main PC (Right) has Safari installed on it's hard drive, but the laptop is actually accessing it on the network as the the safari folder in C:/Program Files is set to share. Because I don't use Safari all that much I dont feel the need to install it twice.

4. Because both machines can access each other I don't find myself forever switching to different machines all the time. Instead, I can simply stay at one computer and access files on both. Simple enough!

5. This probably should of been mentioned earlier but when I say creating a network I don't mean having massive amounts of servers in a room with many wires. A home network can simply consist of one computer (As the host of the network) and any other computers such as a laptop. Because the main PC is usually the machine that has everything attached to it such as printers, the WiFi router etc, while the other machines on the network may want access to those devices but aren't directly connected to them. In some cases computers that are not the main host of the network may have devices attached, for example if you have a PC both upstairs and downstairs both might have devices that both PC's need, with a network these devices are avaliable to both PC's and any other machine attached to the network. Showing how a network can share out devices, and that you are not limited to have your devices in one place.

If you haven't already got a network in your home hopefully this article has made you think "Mmm maybe I should set this up" I mean technology is here to make our lifes easier, and I think this is just one of the many ways to help get your everyday tasks done quicker than ever, so why delay!

Look out for my next tech tutorial on how to set up a home network!