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What is Networking?
In its simplest form, a network is at least two computers — desktops, laptops or one of each — connected together with wireless or wired technologies.
For example, let's say you've got a desktop and a laptop in your home or office. Here are your computers:
And here are your computers networked:
Or here's how your computers could be networked:
Or here:
Seem confusing? Just take it one step at a time. First, you'll choose between three options for how you connect your computers:
Once you've chosen your type of network, you can add more computers and peripherals, such as printers, scanners, IP Cameras or anything else that people can share on a network.
Let's take the previous example — two computers, one desktop and one laptop — and build on it a little. We'll add another desktop, a printer and, of course, a broadband or DSL modem so all the computers can share a broadband or DSL Internet connection.
If this is a wireless network, it looks like this:
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