There was a time when the task of setting up a network was deemed too complicated for anyone except hopeless computer geeks—the type of people who read BYTE.com. But technology has taken great strides in recent years. Today's networks are as easy to set up as a Mid-East peace talk, and almost as likely to work.

What tools do you need for your network? First and foremost, you'll need at least two personal computers. Anything less and you can't pass data from one PC to the other. You'll also need several special cords called cables, and a box to plug these cables into, called an Internet router because people stopped buying things called hubs.

Most routers come with five Ethernet connectors labeled 1, 2, 3, 4, and WAN (which stands for Internet Connection). The other four connectors are for plugging your computers into the router. You'll need a long cable (they come in lengths up to 87 cubits) to reach a computer in a different room than the router. You'll also need to drill a hole in the floor, discover that the hole isn't in the right location, drill several more until one is right, run the cable under the house and through the walls, then hang onto the cable for dear life as the overly-drilled floor collapses.

Without Wires

If Ethernet seems too difficult, try setting up a wireless network. This will allow you to skip laying cables and still get network signals as clear and reliable as anything you've ever seen on a television with rabbit ears.

Most wireless network products sold today are based on the Wide Open Wireless standard (WiOWi, pronounced "Why, Oh, why," as in "Why, Oh, why doesn't my network work?"). If your router has an antenna, it is either WiOWi compatible or mutated into a giant cockroach. Either way, it will have to be properly configured.

Configuring a WiOWi-compatible router usually means going to a particular Web page with a friendly, easy-to-remember URL like http://192.168.0.1/. Once there, you fiddle with settings like TCP/IP, PPTP, and I See Pee Pee until you accidentally find a combination of settings that work.

If nothing works, your computer is too far from the router to get a good signal. The easiest solution is to move the room the computer is in with the help of a crowbar and a forklift. If the signal from your router is still not stretching into other rooms in your house, you can at least take comfort in the fact that it's probably stretching into your neighbors' homes and giving them free access.

You'll know that your network hardware is set up properly when every PC in your home has Internet access. Now it's time to try sharing a printer or some files, realize that one computer still can't find the other, and devote the next two weeks to fulltime network debugging.

The instructions below assume that all of your computers run Microsoft Windows. If you're networking Macs, you don't need this type of help because Macs are so insanely easy to use. If your Mac network doesn't work, just close your eyes and repeat "I believe in Steve Jobs" until it does. If you use Linux, you're on your own (but of course, if you use Linux, you're used to that).

Names in the 'Hood

Start by right-clicking the Network Neighborhood icon on your desktop and selecting Properties. This should bring you to the Windows Network Properties page. Unless, of course, it doesn't. Or there's no Network Neighborhood icon on your desktop. Or you instead get the Blue Screen of Death.

If you somehow manage to get to the Network Properties page, make sure that all your PCs have unique computer names, but that their workgroup names are identical. You do this by finding the name and the workgroup name on one computer, memorizing them, running over to another computer, finding them there, and running back to the first one to make sure you memorized everything correctly.

If you find that all of your PCs have identical computer names and unique workgroup names, you'll have to switch them. Or you may want to give Computer A the workgroup name you've already assigned to Computer B, then give Computer B the workgroup name you've already given A.

You must also understand the correct protocol if you are to have a working network—or a career as a diplomat. Today the most popular protocol for peer-to-peer networks is TCP/IP, which is also the primary protocol for the Internet. By using the same standard for local file sharing and talking to everyone else in the world, modern networks allow anyone access to your computer.

Windows computers also support some older, now-irrelevant network protocols such as NetBUI, IPX/SPX, and FoxNews. Ignore them. On a modern, Windows-based, peer-to-peer network, you must never, ever use any protocol except TCP/IP-unless, of course, your computers don't see each other. Then you just grab whatever protocols you can find until you stumble upon something that works.

If you're patient and work hard, you'll eventually have a working peer-to-peer network. At least until it breaks down.