INTRODUCTION

This book is for people who never expected to build or run a computer network. You were happily using a computer, sending and receiving email, writing reports, and maybe downloading music through the Internet when one day you looked around to discover that one computer had somehow multiplied—now you have two, or three, or more computers. Maybe each of your children needs his or her own computer to do homework or all of your employees have computers on their desks. Or maybe you brought a portable laptop computer home from work and you want to use it along with the family's desktop machine.

Whatever the reason, you now have several computers, and you need a way to connect all of them to the Internet at the same time and to share files, ...

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