??? A wireless access point, which serves as a base station for your wireless
PCs and devices, and connects them to the rest of your network.
??? A router, which bridges your local network to the Internet and provides
Internet access to all the computers on your LAN. Plus, if you??™re using a
broadband connection that requires a username and password (e.g.,
PPPoE), the router will log in automatically for you, and keep you
logged in.
Figure 7-19. A simple workgroup with three computers, one of which has a shared
Internet connection
Figure 7-20. A wireless router not only makes it easy to share an Internet connection, it
offers better security and more flexibility than the old-school approach shown in Figure 7-19;
all of these computers, wired and wireless, have equal access to the Internet??”note the
wireless print server
392 | Chapter 7: Networking and Internet
??? A DHCP server, which automatically assigns IP addresses to computers
in your local network (typically starting with 192.168.1.100, where
192.168.1.1 is the router itself), allowing them to coexist peacefully on
your network.
??? A firewall, preventing any and all communication from the outside
world, except that which you specifically allow. (This is done through
your router??™s port-forwarding feature.)
You??™ll see routers discussed throughout this chapter. If you don??™t yet have
one, do yourself a favor and pick one up. They??™re cheap, and as shown here,
do quite a lot.
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