Image by versageek (Thanks!)

I was at a birthday party recently (Happy birthday, Ches!) and a friend there asked me about networking his desktop PC and laptop in his home. I knew he had broadband internet access, so I asked if he used a wireless router. Indeed he did. He was so close to having his network set up, but needed a little information to complete it. First, he needed to ensure both computers were in the same workgroup. Then, he needed to turn on file and printer sharing on one or both computers. Of course, there are many other things one can do once the basic network is set up. Here is a good document on Microsoft’s site about setting up a network.

It was cool to get an email the next day from my friend telling me he’d gotten it all working.

Remember, while it’s important to encrypt your wireless network, it’s doubly important when you have enabled file sharing.