eBay Business All-in-One For Dummies, 3rd Edition

Chapter 5: Networking Your Office

In This Chapter

• Setting up your network
• Getting secure, Internet style

The first time I spoke to my editors about putting information in my books about networking a home business, they scoffed at me. People who worked at home in the early days didn't need computer networks (as if networks were solely for big companies with lots of cubicles). The more I spoke to the eBay community, however, the more I saw the need for home networks — and the more people asked me about them.

I started writing about eBay in 1998, and now it's more than ten years later. A lot of technology has washed under the bridge, and many advances have been made. Setting up a network in 1999 meant spending hours (maybe days) changing settings, testing, checking computers, and cursing. That was if you were lucky enough to finally get it right. Otherwise — as was the case for most home users, including me — you'd give up, take the whole thing as a loss, and go on with your life.

Luckily for us non-techie types, networks are considerably more home-network-friendly than in the old days. Also, more pleasant modes of networking (other than having miles of Ethernet cables snaking around the walls of your house) came to the fore of technology.

By networking your home (or office) you'll save time by having the flexibility to work from different rooms or locations. You can also list items out by the pool (or in your backyard) in summer!

This chapter is a quick-and-dirty discussion of ...