GameBanshee Forums

Hello ladies and gents. Its me thug, and I am half dead (Havent slept since last freakin week..) I am half aware of what I am typing...

On the second we are getting broadband via Cable. I live in a three bedroom house with three room mates. I was thinking of how I could network the house, part of me wants to build a firewall machine/pron server(of course), another part of me just wants to get a freakin cheap ass hub.

my question is what would you recommend. Keep thrifty in mind.

Buy a wireless router and put wireless cards in each system. That way you won't have to run cables all over the house and everyone can use their computer in the privacy of their own room. Almost all retail routers have NAT firewalls built in, but if you feel the need for additional security, get ZoneAlarm (free), Black Ice Defender (free), or Norton Internet Security (inexpensive) and run an additional firewall on each machine.

The router will run you about $150-200 retail and the wireless cards are about $40-70. A standard router runs about $90 and you can get a 10/100 NIC for $15-30. If you shop around, you will often be able to find these products with lots of rebates, so the final cost to you may be much lower (for instance, I bought a Netgear 10/100 NIC for $15 cash, and got $10 in rebates from Best Buy a couple of months ago).