Home Office Blues

How to Set Up a Home Office Network Part 2: Getting Connected - A Visual Guide

hob — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 14:12:00 GMT

How to Set Up a Home Office Network Part 2: Getting Connected

There are a lot of ways to set up a network. How you do it depends on how many devices you want to connect, what they do, and where they are in relation to each other.

In this article, I am going to give several scenarios with visual guides. I will start with the simplest scenario and gradually add devices and functionality. This should help you understand how networks are built and what equipment is necessary to achieve your goals.

How To Set up a Home Office Network: Part 1 - Getting Internet Service

hob — Sat, 08 Jul 2006 20:50:00 GMT

How To Set up a Home Office Network
Part 1: Getting Internet Service
The first step in setting up a home office network is to figure out how you are going to connect to the internet. You need an on-ramp to the information superhighway. There are several different ways to get on the Internet. This is good because competition lowers prices and improves features, but bad because marketing geniuses have a gift for confusing everyone about their choices.

How To Set up a Home Office Network: The Overview

hob — Sat, 08 Jul 2006 20:45:00 GMT

How To Set up a Home Office Network:
The Overview
This is a multi-part series to explain in simple language the process of connecting to the internet and setting up a home network.

20 Rules for Better Conference Calls

hob — Thu, 09 Feb 2006 14:57:00 GMT

20 Rules for Better Conference Calls or "Don't make me reach through this phone and slap you!"

This article was born from experience. After you have sat through so many conference calls, you just can’t put up with one more heavy-breather, or side-talker or snack-muncher. You just snap.

When that moment comes you have two choices. Go on a manic screaming tirade, or write a sarcastic article. I chose the latter.

Review: Vonage Voice over IP (VoIP) Telephone Service

hob — Sat, 29 Oct 2005 07:00:00 GMT

What is it?
Vonage is a voice over internet (VoIP) telephone service. This means that you make telephone calls using a normal phone over your internet connection instead of over the lines of the phone company. You can call any phone number using this service and the receiver does not need anything special to receive your call.

Review: Brother MFC-420CN

hob — Fri, 21 Oct 2005 07:00:00 GMT

What is it?
The Brother MFC-420CN is a compact inkjet printer, scanner, copier, fax machine, memory card reader. It has USB2 and RJ-45 network connectivity and it has a document feeder.