John (and everyone else!),

I have decided on the wired route.  Here's what I'm thinking, please tell
me where I might stumble:

Install RJ-45 jacks in the two rooms with CAT5 cable between.  One
cross-over cable going from PC to wall jack in one room, one
straight-through cable from PC to wall in the other room.  Then use XPs
Network setup wizard as mentioned by another PCBUILDer.

I see wireless should be used only where there is some compelling reason to
dispense with the wires:  Rental units where cutting holes in the wall
wouldn't be good, or where mobility is desired, etc.  I had considered
wireless just because I did't feel like fishing cable through the walls and
attic during summer!

Thanks again for all the help!

At 04:01 PM 6/10/2005 -0400, you wrote:
>For the most reliable and least expensive way to obtain the bare minimums
>that you mentioned, you will not need a wireless access point (router). All
>you need are two Ethernet 10/100 network cards. You can choose wireless or
>wired. For wireless, just create an adhoc network between the two computers.
>For wired, you will need to use a cross-over UTP cable. The cross-over uses
>the TIA/EIA 568A standard on one end and the TIA/EIA 568B standard on the
>other end, which is just a technical way of saying that the send and receive
>wires are switched on one end of the cable to an industry standard. This
>will make file and printer sharing feasible.

<SNIP>

>I cannot imagine internet connection sharing with dial-up. Assuming that
>there is a modem in each computer, my solution would be to hook-up each
>computer's modem to nearby RJ-11 wall jacks. If someone was using the
>Internet on the other computer - I would ask them to disconnect (or let me
>know when they were finished), so that I could dial up the ISP from my
>computer. My concern is that dial-up is slow enough already - it doesn't
>need any help to run slower with the added delays induced through ICS.

<SNIP>

>HTH...John

Paul Jones
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