Re: Re OT Search terms

["Robert Holmgren" holmgren@xxxxxxxx]

** Reply to message from Patricia M Godfrey  on Mon, 1 Dec
2003 12:06:27 -0500


> the chief thing is I'm NOT interested in Internet connectivity

Patricia! The point is, when you set up LAN networking, you also set up the
*potential* for Internet connectivity -- it's all the same thing. A network is
a network is a network, large or small; whether it extends to the WWW or not is
irrelevant. When you join any network, you have "connectivity". And, note
well, it is not for you, humble client member of the LAN, to connect to the
Internet; that's the job of your LAN server (which may, or may not, perform its
job -- but it's irrelevant to the discussion).

Now (pausing to reflect) I suppose, somewhere on the planet, there is a
constituted, functioning LAN, the *individual* members of which dial up, each
on their own, when they please, to reach the Internet. That is so insane, so
farfetched and ridiculous, that I mention it ONLY because, well, you said
something about AOL, and that said something about the person who set up your
LAN, and no broadband; and one thought led to another...

My talk of the Internet really relates to one issue only (and, again, this is
set up at the *same time* as your basic networking, so it's all one ball of
wax): the address of your DNS. Sometimes you point your client machine's "DNS
address" at your LAN server, but other times you must point at the external DNS
of your ISP -- it depends on your server's software and/or hardware (router
etc). Obviously, you can revisit your own machine's settings at any time to
make adjustments (although my recollection of Win98 is that just about any
adjustment you make to networking requires a reboot, whereas on NT -- seldom
verging on never). (Beats me why you think so highly of Win98...)

That said, client machines on a LAN have other ways of talking to each other
than via dotted addresses -- they're called "UNC" names. If your desktop were
named "PATRICIA" (you always want to keep your machine name at eight chars or
less, for compatibility across operating systems), then your UNC address would
be "\\PATRICIA", and other machines e.g. your laptop can transfer files thusly
(e.g.):
 COPY MYFILE \\PATRICIA\C\XY4 (where C:\Xy4 is the Desktop target dir)
No need for TCP/IP protocol there (what you're using is NETBIOS or NETBEUI
protocol instead). Still, you do need to set up TCP/IP if only because, if you
don't, your router will never know how to forward WWW messages to you. Plus
you need TCP/IP at home (to dial up and answer this Email), so... Bob's dead
right about the details: they can be devilish; but the network principles are
quite simple.

-----------------------------
Robert Holmgren
holmgren@xxxxxxxx
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