In this article, I am going to give several scenarios with visual guides. I will start with the simplest scenario and gradually add devices and functionality. This should help you understand how networks are built and what equipment is necessary to achieve your goals.

Scenario 1: Connecting One Computer to the Internet

In this simple scenario you need:

• Broadband Modem – This is often provided by the ISP and may be called a gateway or router.
• Cable – Network Cable (RJ-45) is the most common cable to use, but in a single computer setup USB cable may also be an option depending on the Broadband Modem. (See What Types of Cables Do You Need? below for a visual guide to cables.)
• Network Interface Card (NIC) – An RJ-45 network port is built into most new computers and laptops. If yours does not have one, you need a NIC which costs around $20.00. If your computer does not have a NIC you may have the option to use a USB connection.

Scenario 2: Connecting Multiple Computers or Devices

In this scenario you need:

• Broadband Modem
• Cable – Network Cable (RJ-45)
• Switch/Hub – These are devices that allow multiple devices to connect to a network. Switches and hubs perform the same function of connecting multiple devices. Switches are generally more expensive then hubs, but they are smarter than hubs, perform much better and are the recommended equipment.
• Network Interface Cards (NIC) for each device

Scenario 3: Connecting Multiple Computers with Wireless

In this scenario you need:

• Broadband Modem
• Cable – Network Cable (RJ-45) – Optional
• Combined Switch/Router/Wireless Access Point (WAP) – These are devices that combine the functionality of a switch, a router and a Wireless Access Point. They are a very cost effective way of building a small wireless network. This is the recommended configuration for a new network. If you are adding wireless to an existing wired network, you can buy a standalone WAP that will be connected to the wired switch with network cable.
• Wired or Wireless Network Interface Cards (NIC) for each device depending on connection type. Many (but not all) new laptops have wireless network cards built-in.

Scenario 4: Adding VoIP to an existing Network

• Broadband Modem
• VoIP device – Voice over Internet (Protocol). This is a very inexpensive way to get phone service in your home office. (see our resource directory for more info)
• Cable – Network Cable (RJ-45) – Optional
• Combined Switch/Router/Wireless Access Point
• Wired or Wireless Network Interface Cards (NIC) for each device depending on connection type. Many (but certainly not all) new laptops have wireless network cards built-in.

What Types of Cables Do You Need?

• Network Cable – Also known as Cat5, ethernet cable, or RJ-45. This is the cable that carries most network signals in a local network. The connector looks like an oversize phone jack and each cable holds 8 wires.
• USB Cable – In some cases, if you are connecting a single computer directly to a broadband modem, you can use a USB cable. The boxy type B end plugs into the modem and the flatter type A end connects to the computer.
• Phone Cable – Also known as RJ-11. This is the cable you use to plug in your phone. This type of connector may fit into a network jack but it will not work. Phone cable is only used to connect your phone to a VoIP adaptor.

What Kind of Wireless Do You Need?

There are several flavors of wireless equipment available when you build your home office wireless network. These wireless types are denoted with the IEEE designation of 802.11 and a letter – A, B, G, or Draft-N. Generally, all of these flavors fall under the popular nickname Wi-Fi. Here is a brief explanation of each specification and a recommendation for what you should buy now.

802.11a – Speeds up to 54 Mbs, generally more expensive and harder to find. This is not recommended for a home office even if you can find it.

802.11b – Speeds up to 11 Mbs, this was the first popular wireless standard. It has been overshadowed by 802.11g in recent years because of G’s greater speed and range, but equipment can still be found at bargain prices in many places.

802.11g – Speeds up to 54 Mbs, this is the current standard in Wi-Fi networking. 802.11g has great advantages over 802.11b in terms of speed and range. Most Wireless G equipment is backwards compatible with 802.11b equipment and you may see some equipment with the explicit 802.11b/g designation to show this. 802.11g equipment can be found at good price points and is recommended for most people setting up a network today. At some point in 2007, this recommendation may change.

Draft-802.11n – Speeds up to 108Mbs, As of January 25, 2007, 802.11n is not a fully approved specification. It will/should become fully approved in the next couple months. In the meantime you may see equipment denoted as “pre-N”, “draft-N” or “MIMO”. Manufacturers have been selling pre-N equipment for over a year, with the assumption that their execution of it will become the new standard. If you buy any N designated equipment today, you will need to upgrade when 802.11n is officially approved. Depending on the equipment you purchase, this upgrade process may or may not be possible with a simple software fix and may require the purchase of additional or replacement hardware. If you are comfortable with the risk of upgrades or need the ability to stream video today, you may decide to go with a draft-N product.

Other Wireless Enhancements
In addition to B, G and N specifications you may see additional designations such as “Speedbooster”, “Super G”, “Xtreme” etc. These designations mark technological tricks used by manufactures to squeeze more performance out of an official 802.11x specification. Under most circumstances, you must match up the manufacture of the WAP/Router/Switch with the NIC to achieve these added performance levels. If you mix and match equipment from different manufactures you will likely see the standard performance (or less).

Being indispensable is a fine way to gain job security, but this is not the same as getting ahead and job security is never permanent no matter how indispensable you are. Eventually some person, some technology, or plain bad luck will disrupt the status quo and your job security will disappear.

The truth is that if you make yourself indispensable, you can’t take a vacation without being bothered. If you are indispensable, you can’t get promoted because it would be too inconvenient to backfill your position. If you are indispensable, you will continue to be stuck doing the same job, the same tasks, until that job ceases to exist.

You don’t want to be indispensable.

This does not mean you shouldn’t do a good job. You need to do a good job. You should be doing a great job. But don’t be the only one that can do that job. Be a leader. Be dynamic. Teach others to do the job as well as you. If the job is too hard for others to do, then find ways to make it simpler. Create processes, procedures and tools that make your job so simple a hamster could do it. Make yourself obsolete.

As you become obsolete, expand your job to include other difficult tasks. Become great at doing those tasks. Find ways to make doing those tasks simple. Teach others to do them. Make yourself obsolete.

Make yourself obsolete. Make yourself obsolete, again and again.

Soon you will find that you are not great at doing tasks. You are great at solving problems. You are great at seeing the big picture and breaking it down into simple components. You will not be indispensable in your job because you are an expert at finding ways other people can do your job easier and cheaper.

You can be promoted and you can get ahead because you are not indispensable in your current job and the next job is always harder. Until you start doing it…

I’m glad you asked. It turns out that the steps that are necessary to get promoted when you work from home are the same as those that are necessary to get promoted when you work in an office. Like everything else however, the telecommuter must work smarter.

Here are the 3 steps to getting promoted:

1. Be valuable.

This is obvious. You must do good work, have a good work ethic, and be a real value to your company. Most people stop here assuming that their work speaks for itself. Don’t make that mistake. You must proceed to step two.

2. Be visible.

You must market yourself and your work. You must make your presence felt by making sure you are working on visible projects. And finally, you must network and build relationships across the organization (and beyond). Know what other people are working on and be sure they know what you are doing.

3. Ask for the promotion.

You are doing good work; people know it and you have paid your dues. Don’t stop there. If you want to be promoted, you have to ask for it. This is where most people drop the ball. For some reason people are afraid to ask for what they want.

How do you ask? First of all, remember you are asking, not demanding. Second, think of this as a process and not necessarily an event.

Set up time with your boss to discuss your career plans. Tell them your goals and ask them for concrete steps you can take to reach them. Listen to what your boss says. Write down their suggestions. Create a promotion road-map. Be specific. Revisit this road map with them on a regular basis as you achieve milestones. This strategy works because they become invested in the process and you learn exactly what is expected of you.

The above strategy works if you expect to get a promotion from your boss, but in today’s broad flat organizations that is a lot less likely. Your best opportunities may be elsewhere in the organization which is why it is so important to cultivate your network and relationships. If you can find a mentor you can have a similar conversation as above.

At the end of the day, being in the right place at the right time is often the way that promotions happen. The office in your home can be the right place, but you must work harder and smarter to convince the traditionalists.

This post in conjunction with the “how to” group writing project.

Telecommuting full time is not easy. You have to communicate better and perform better than your office bound counterparts to get the same amount of recognition and career advancement potential.

I have a family to support, so career advancement is an important issue for me. So you may be wondering why I would want to make it more difficult to get a promotion.

One reason is lunch. Yes, Lunch.

I save $7-$10 a day by going upstairs for lunch rather than to the local greasy spoon for my mid-day meal. Of course that $1600 a year is not the reason I like lunch at home. I like it because I get to eat lunch with my two-year old son.

Yesterday, I gave him chicken nuggets for lunch. He ate all but two and then said, “Daddy’s nuggets” and began rotating the plate so that the nuggets were closer to me. Whether this was generosity, a lesson in sharing, or a clever ploy to get out of eating the last two nuggets was anyone’s guess.

In any case when he completed the 180 degree rotation, he stopped, got a funny look on his face, giggled, pointed at the nuggets and then said, “Eyes!” He realized that the 2 nuggets at the top of a blue plate looked like a funny face and was amazed by the discovery.

So there it is. In 30 seconds, I got to see my son plot, plan, execute, use his imagination, discover, and communicate his creative discovery with glee.

This is remarkable to me because last month I was amazed when he started putting together words into sentences that made sense. The month before that I was amazed when he started saying, “Yes” to things instead of the ubiquitous “No, no, no!” that was his response to nearly every previous question or request.

By eating lunch at home, I get to watch my son grow, learn, and discover. I don’t miss out on the mischief, plots and bursts of creativity that only happen in the middle of mundane tasks like eating lunch.

Watching your kid grow up is an amazing thing that I get to do more often because I am not sitting in traffic for two hours day. I know through the little things discovered over lunch that he is smart and becoming more clever everyday. This is a great thing to see, because it let’s me know that the extra $1600 a year I am putting into his college fund will not go to waste.

Choices for Internet Service
In a nutshell here are some brief descriptions of the available technology:

1. Dial-Up – Dial up is the slowest internet access available. It uses an analog signal over a regular phone line. It’s okay for email and very basic web pages. It will drive you mad if you need to access rich-media websites or download anything but the smallest files.

2. DSL – Digital Subscriber Line is a good economical choice for broadband internet access if it is available to you. It delivers internet access through your existing phone line. Even though DSL shares the line with voice traffic, the two functions operate on different frequencies and do not interfere with each other. This allows you to make and receive phone calls while downloading files and surfing web sites.

3. Cable – Cable internet comes in on the same coaxial cable that delivers your cable TV signal. It is generally faster than DSL but is also generally more expensive.

4. Satellite – Satellite internet is more expensive and generally slower than DSL or Cable. It is the broadband of last resort. It works by routing data from earth to a geosynchronous satellite 22,000 miles up in space to your professionally installed 2-way satellite dish and back again. This 44,000 mile round trip takes some time, but it is still much faster than dial-up.

5. Fiber Optics – Fiber Optics to the curb or house will be increasingly available over the next few years. Telephone companies like Verizon are laying the cable in an effort to compete with Cable providers for voice, telephone and internet. Fiber Optic cable is a tiny glass fiber surrounded by lots of protective insulation. Instead of electrical impulses, light pulses travel down the glass fiber to transmit data. This technology will offer high speeds and bandwidths at a reasonable price when it becomes widely available.

So how do I choose which technology is for me
The descriptions above should get you started thinking about what you need but I am going to make it simpler than that. You have two questions to ask yourself:

1. How much speed do you need?
2. What is available?

Speed
What do you do on the internet now? What do you want to do in the future?

If you only use email or view basic web pages you may be able to get away with a dial-up connection. However, my bet is that you probably want to do more. I recommend that you forget about dial-up unless you have no choice. In many areas, entry level DSL is as cheap as dial-up and you get at least 5 times the speed.

With entry level DSL you can easily download small-medium files and view more graphic and media intensive websites. With mid-tier plans you can download bigger files and also do streaming audio and video. If you download a lot of medium-large files, use an Internet phone (VoIP), teleconference, or simply do a lot all at once, then you will need to start looking at the faster plans.

Just so you get an idea, I classify the download speeds as follows: 256 Kbs is entry level speeds, 1-2 Mbs (1,000-2,000 Kbs) is mid-tier speeds, 3-6 Mbs is fast, and 6-10+ is very fast. You are going to get a lot less upload speed: 128-256 KBS is entry level, 512-728 Kbs is mid-tier, and anything over 1 Mbs is fast. Upload speeds are very important for teleworkers, internet phone users and people that need to upload files.

Availability
I hope I have convinced you to look at broadband. Don’t worry it actually gets easier here. Most of the confusion will disappear by eliminating the choices that are simply not available. Availability is likely to be the most important aspect of your decision making process.

If you are on a tight budget, you want basic broadband, and DSL is available, then get the entry level package and call it a day. DSL is generally the cheapest form of broadband at the low to mid speed ranges. The problem is that DSL is only available within 3 miles of the central office (CO). This puts many suburban households out of range for DSL.

If you are looking at the mid to high speed ranges see if anyone has put in a new fiber optics network yet. This stuff is coming in at cable prices and is much faster.

Compare
If you are not one of the lucky ones with fiber, then you need to start comparing prices. In most places, if you can get it, DSL is still cheaper than Cable at the mid-tier range. However, at the mid-high speed levels it can go either way.

When you are comparing prices you want to find out the download and upload speeds. Upload speeds are usually much slower than the download speeds.

When comparing DSL and cable you may hear the argument from DSL marketers that when you use cable internet you are sharing your connection with the whole neighborhood. The implication is that your performance suffers. Don’t buy into this argument. These days there is plenty of capacity to go around and you won’t notice any competition for bandwidth.

At the end of the day, when it comes to choosing, look at the speed and look at the price and make your decision.

More Information
Check out our Resource Directory for a list of Internet Service Providers complete with community feedback. Be sure to leave comments to share any experiences – good or bad – you have had with any ISP.

To see what is available in your area you should check out Broadband National. You simply enter the phone number of the place you want internet service and it comes back with all the options available to you. You can sort by price, specials, speed, and company. If you find something you like, you can order it directly.

This is a multi-part series to explain in simple language the process of connecting to the internet and setting up a home network.

The Overview – Includes a checklist. Looking for the basics? Start here.
Part 1: Get Service – Choosing an internet service provider
Part 2: Get Connected – What equipment is necessary for connecting one or more machines to each other and the internet.
Part 3: Get Secure – Securing your network from hackers and pests. (coming soon)
Part 4: FAQ – Submit your questions in the comments or using our form. (coming soon)

Who is this for?

This article is targeted towards the non-techie Average Joe. It will help someone with zero to low understanding of technology set up a home office network from scratch or expand their network to include multiple devices. I have tried to make it as basic as possible, but also give you the foundation required to expand your knowledge and network as required.

Getting Started

When it comes to setting up a network there are many ways to skin a cat. It can get very confusing very quickly, but I am going to try to simplify it for you. We’ll start with the following questions. Don’t worry, I will help you answer them.

• How much speed do you need?
• What service is available?
• How many computers or devices do you need to connect?
• Where are these devices in relation to each other?

Keep the answers to these questions in mind as you go through the rest of the process.

The checklist:

1. Get Internet Service

? Internet Service Provider (ISP) – Required

2. Get Connected

? Broadband Modem (aka gateway, router)– Required: Often provided by the ISP

? Switch/Hub – Optional: Only necessary if you plan to connect more than one device

? Network Cable/Wireless – Required: Chosen by you

? Network Interface Card (NIC) – Required: Often built into the computer or device

? Networked Device – Required: Usually a computer, but can include printers, personal digital assistants (PDA), media players, network storage devices, etc.

3. Get Secure

? Firewall – Hardware
? Anti-Virus
? Anti-Adware/Spyware
? Wireless security

Be sure to read the rest of this series:
The Overview – Includes a checklist. Looking for the basics? Start here.
Part 1: Get Service – Choosing an internet service provider
Part 2: Get Connected – What equipment is necessary for connecting one or more machines to each other and the internet.
Part 3: Get Secure – Securing your network from hackers and pests. (coming soon)
Part 4: FAQ – Submit your questions in the comments or using our form. (coming soon)

This article was born from experience. After you have sat through so many conference calls, you just can’t put up with one more heavy-breather, or side-talker or snack-muncher. You just snap.

When that moment comes you have two choices. Go on a manic screaming tirade, or write a sarcastic article. I chose the latter.

Now, you can benefit from my passive aggressiveness. The next time one of your co-workers sends you over the edge with rude conference call behavior, email them the link to this article. They will thank you for showing them the light. (Editor’s note: They won’t thank you… but others may.)

You may notice that these rules are simple and common sense. Yeah, I noticed that too and yet I still had to write the article… Go figure.

So without further ado, here are the 20 Rules of Conference Call Etiquette

Reduce Environmental Noise

1. Pick a quiet place to take your conference call.
2. Be mindful of nearby babies, animals, lawnmowers, and swimming pools (Yes, it really happened).
3. Close the office door or window before taking the call.
4. Don’t join conference calls from public places. (This is a noise and privacy thing)
5. If you have to join a call from a car, use the mute feature.

Reduce Personal Noise.

6. Don’t play with the microphone or shuffle papers near it.
7. Position the microphone correctly, close enough to pick up your voice but not your breathing. (Yes it’s nice to know you are still alive, but how do we know you are not asleep.)
8. Don’t eat while on the phone! (it sounds gross, and look at your phone… Ewww!)
9. Don’t hold other conversations. (Multitasking doesn’t really work.)

Equipment Matters

10. You must have a mute button and know how to use it quickly
11. Avoid wireless phones and cell phones. (You are not that important)
12. If you are alone, do not use a speakerphone.
13. Invest in a good wired headset with adjustable boom microphone.
14. Never put a conference call on hold. (No matter how nice the hold Muzak™ is.)

Mind Your Manners

15. Start on time – This is a good rule for all meetings.
16. Introduce all call participants at the beginning of the call
17. State your name before talking. Don’t assume people will recognize your voice. (This works in reverse too, don’t assume people won’t recognize your voice, so think before speaking.)
18. Avoid interrupting other speakers
19. Be concise
20. End the call properly – Wrap up the meeting, sign off and hang up. (I was once in a meeting where everyone in the room simply got up and left without saying goodbye or hanging up the phone.)

Vonage is a voice over internet (VoIP) telephone service. This means that you make telephone calls using a normal phone over your internet connection instead of over the lines of the phone company. You can call any phone number using this service and the receiver does not need anything special to receive your call.

Pros:

Inexpensive, lots of features, includes all calls to the USA, Canada and Puerto Rico.

Cons:

Occasional reliability issues, some voice quality issues including echoes and static, not available during an electrical or internet outage, must have broadband internet access to use it

Review:

Vonage telephone service is great as a second line. It is very inexpensive and includes a lot of features compared to regular telephone service. However, it is not a utility and will never have the reliability of Ma Bell so I would not consider it as an only line option.

The unlimited Vonage plans cost $24.99 for a personal line and $49.99 for a business line. The business line includes all the features of the personal line plus a dedicated fax line. If you plan to list your phone number in a Yellow pages advertisement, they generally require that you have a business line. If you are simply telecommuting, a personal line is fine.

In order to use Vonage you must have high-speed broadband internet access. I have a cable modem and use Comcast as my internet service provider (ISP). Make sure you have adequate bandwidth before you get Vonage. Without adequate bandwidth, voice quality will suffer greatly if you are surfing the internet or downloading files when you talk on the phone. Vonage recommends at least 90kbs, but I have found that you should have a minimum or 728kbs in both upload and download bandwidth to consider using VoIP.

For me, Vonage is only reliable about 95% of the time. This is not necessarily Vonage’s fault because they have no control over blackouts, your connection speeds, or the network traffic going on at any given time. This reliability issue is important because you must have an alternative phone option in place to use during an outage or period of bad voice quality. I have access to my home phone and my cellular phone for use whenever I can’t use my Vonage phone. For me this works, you have to ask yourself if it works for you.

Vonage comes with a huge assortment of features that usually cost extra with a line from the telephone company. I use the call waiting, caller ID, voicemail, call forwarding, and conference call features constantly. To give you an example of how robust the features are let me tell you about voicemail. When someone leaves a voicemail message, I can listen to it from any phone, I can log into my account at vonage.com and listen to it through my computer speakers, or I can have an audio file of the message sent anywhere by email. I do all three. There are many more features available including free calls to anywhere in the USA, Canada and Puerto Rico.

The final point I would like to make is regarding the geek factor. You do not have to be a geek or a rocket scientist to set up Vonage. However, it may still intimidate people that are afraid of wires and electronic devices. Another thing to note is that the Vonage adapter adds another bit of complexity to your network. This is only a problem when you have a problem. If you call your ISP for support for any type of internet access problems, you can be sure that they will ask you to disconnect your Vonage equipment before beginning the troubleshooting.

If you can live with all of this, then you are a prime candidate for Vonage.

The Verdict:

Vonage is a great money saving choice for a second line or a home office line under the following conditions:
1. You have access to a land line or cell phone during occasional outages.
2. The speed of your broadband internet connection is adequate (I recommend at least 728kbs up and down).
3. You have a basic level of comfort with technology. (You do not have to be a rocket scientist or geek).

What is it?

The Brother MFC-420CN is a compact inkjet printer, scanner, copier, fax machine, memory card reader. It has USB2 and RJ-45 network connectivity and it has a document feeder.

Pros:

Compact, built in networking and USB2 connectivity, separate color ink cartridges, built in memory card readers, built in document feeder, easy to use.

Cons:

Light duty feel, small capacity, it says the ink cartridges are empty when it seems it could suck several more pages out of them.

Review:

When I first set up my home office I needed a small, quiet, multi-function printer, scanner, fax machine. The system recommended by the IT department was a huge monstrosity of system, but I wanted something that wouldn’t crowd my already tight space. I took matters into my own hands and found this versatile and compact little system.

My minimum requirements were a printer that was compact, had separate color cartridges and could print scan and fax. My “nice-to-have” features were a document feeder and network connectivity so I could share the printer with my other computers. This printer met those needs plus provided a flash memory card reader that works with a variety of formats.

My experience with the system has been quite good. I must admit that I am not a heavy user. Generally, I print a couple 10-12 page documents a day, but on occasion I have printed out 100-200 page documents and it hasn’t had any problems. The software is useful and easy to use, but I have found that on rare occasions it freaks out and I need to goose the computer to get it working properly again. This isn’t shocking because I generally leave my system on for weeks and only reboot occasionally.

The only problem I have with this device is that it “feels” cheap. I feel like I have to be careful handling it or I might break it. This “feeling” also makes me wonder if it would start to flounder if I tried to work it harder and more often. I don’t know how valid these thoughts are, because so far it has handled everything I have thrown at it with pure utility.

The Verdict:

I like the Brother MFC-420CN. It is compact, feature rich, and has performed ably for a year.

Buy the Brother MFC-420CN from Amazon.com now!

Other Related Brother Multifunction Printers:

Brother MFC-820cw: Features Wireless Network w/2.5" Color LCD

Don’t Forget the Ink!

Brother LC41M Magenta Ink Cartridge
Brother LC41Y Yellow Ink Cartridge
Brother LC41C Cyan Ink Cartridge
Brother LC41BK Black Ink Cartridge