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Setting up modem/ router for broadband access to internet...
- Help for beginners -
Before you'll get very far setting up a modem/ router, you'll need to understand a bit about what it is doing for you.
Just before I continue my introduction to using a router/ modem: If you are using a USB modem to access broadband (aka DSL, or ADSL), then what I am saying below does not exactly apply. In particular, you will still need to "connect" and "disconnect"... but you can stay connected indefinitely once you have made your connection... not something dial-up users would want to do!
Returning to my subject: That unassuming little box sitting there in front of you, your modem/ router, is an incredible bunch of technology. (Hereinafter referred to simply as your "router".)
You are, I hope, already at least on guarded speaking terms with your PC. You may have attached a printer at some time or other. You send it "stuff", and the printer turns the "stuff" into ink on paper. The printer can also "talk back", once in a while. For instance, it might report that it is out of paper.
Your router is an altogether more sophisticated device. Think of it as being on a par with your PC.
If you previously connected to the internet via a dial up modem, you will be used to initiating a connection, waiting for the phone call to go through, waiting while your PC sends off your user id and password to the computer at your ISP, and, finally, waiting for it to get back to you to say "Okay, go ahead".
With a router, all that becomes a thing of the past as far as you are concerned. When your router is powered up, one "side" of it goes through similar steps, but once it has done that (upon being powered up), the connection is maintained (for your intents and purposes) indefinitely.
The other "side" of the router is connected to a local area network (LAN) to which your PC is also connected. Your PC no longer "sees" the internet directly.
When you wish to talk to the internet, you request a page, e.g. www.google.com. That request passes over the LAN to the router/ modem. The router half then passes your request over to the modem half of the router/ modem, and it is that which "talks to" the internet. When the answers come back, they retrace those steps. Email works the same way.
As an internet user, you are no longer aware of "connecting" and "disconnecting" as you did in the "bad old days" of a dial-up connection. Your browser, etc, "forwards" its requests to (and collects its answers from) the LAN. The router/ modem takes care of exchanging the messages with the "outside world".
All of the above is true and cool when you have just one computer connected to the router. You can have more than one computer connected, in which case things get even more cool. Computer "A" and computer "B" are both on the LAN. They both talk to the LAN half of the router/ modem. Inside it, the requests for information pass over to the modem half and onward to the internet. When the answers come back, the router takes care of routing the answers to the correct computer on the LAN.
Speaking of multiple computers on the router: If you make a few minor "enabling" settings, you can read (and, if you wish, write) to the hard disk of computer "A" from computer "B", and vice versa. You can make all parts of the discs mutually accessible, or only selected folders. The access can be one way or bidirectional. You can also arrange to have a printer attached to computer "B" accessible from computer "A". From "A", you would use the printer as if it were attached to "A".
All good stuff! One final point: If you use a router/ modem for your broadband connection, you will almost certainly get a hardware firewall as part of the router/ modem. While there are good software firewalls, and you can continue to use whatever you have used in the past, the extra layer of protection afforded by the hardware firewall in your router/ modem is a valuable extra layer of defense.
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