Home Networking Annoyances: How to Fix the Most Annoying Things about Your Home Network

In most homes with an Internet connection linked to a single computer, the walls reverberate with amazingly similar cries. See if these sound familiar: "Mom, tell Billy to get out of the chat rooms and let me have the computer for my homework research," or "I have to check my email for an important message, so disconnect right now." Families try to make schedules for Internet access, but they rarely work, and the yelling continues.

Sharing an Internet connection is a way to avoid family squabbles, expensive family therapy, frayed nerves, and a host of unsettling household disturbances. In this chapter I'll go over some of the setup annoyances you might face, especially as you add computers and connection types to your network. I'll also cover the configuration annoyances you encounter as you try to match your Internet Service Provider's (ISP) settings with your network's settings.