You may be thinking that home networking is so ubiquitous there could not possibly be anything new or different to do with this interconnected marvel of now everyday technology. You can surf the Web on any of two to three PCs, upload and download photos, fill an MP3 player to the brim, and chat with your friends and family via IM—what more could you want? I’ve learned from a lot of my friends and co-workers that indeed, that’s about all they can do with their home network now. But they also know about file sharing, printer sharing, wireless, voice chats, and webcams, and think they’ll set up those “pretty soon”—until they hear someone else has hit a snag in their efforts to do more, and then they stop.

This book and the projects in it are about GO! You’ll find out that you’ll want to correct things in your firewall/router, Windows configuration, secure your network

and computers, share that printer, get that wireless working in the back-forty (OK, back-forty square-feet, it’s a small place, work with me, please…). You’ll be sharing music, checking your own weather, watching TV on your laptop (without a tuner card), and enjoying numerous other aspects of home networking—reliably, and a lot more secure than before. This is the book you will take to your friends and say, “hey, I found out how to…” and then be able to sit down at a computer and do “it” in 20–30 minutes. (Sorry, this book will not help you if you’ve forgotten your password and locked yourself out of your computer.)