Long Island LAN - Technology Information

Home Office Computing, June, 2000 by Marshall F. Lager

What kind of network does the network administrator have at home?

YOU CAN LEARN A LOT BY PEEKING BEHIND the scenes at what products and services professionals choose for their personal use. Many parents like to ask pediatricians or mechanics to suggest the safest cars, while homeowners might base a fire or burglar alarm purchase on what local police and firefighters have installed in their homes. So why aren't more folks asking technology-savvy colleagues and neighbors about home networking?

It will happen soon, predicts Ryan Shapiro, network administrator for a New York-based brokerage firm. "Not so long ago, it was a luxury to have even one PC at home. Now people say they need several. Home networks are going to be huge," Shapiro says.

Shapiro has watched the network in his own place--half a house in Farmingdale, N.Y.--expand to include three PCs and a cable modem, all linked using Proxim's Symphony wireless adapters.

Since both he and his fiancee, Randi Drayman--a graphics and Web designer who works both in an office and on projects at home--need Internet access, a stable and flexible network was key. "The Proxim product was pretty easy to set up and use," Shapiro recalls. "But it was a bit tricky getting it to run on a Windows NT server. Instead of the fancy network configuration interface you'd normally see in Windows 98, all I got was a driver with some option tabs."

Shapiro loves the flexibility of his wireless network. "I can give Randi privacy when she's working by just taking my laptop into the other room," he explains. They also enjoy easy resource sharing. "Sometimes I use my laptop to transfer photos from our digital camera so Randi can use them in her graphics work," Shapiro says.

However, Shapiro notes a couple of downsides. The Symphony LAN's speed is a little disappointing, he says, though 1.6Mbps is acceptable for sharing a single printer and Internet connection. In fact, Shapiro considers his cable connection--not Symphony--to be the network's weak link. "Optimum Online from Cablevision of Woodbury] is the most unreliable service I've ever dealt with," he contends, citing a lack of competence from support technicians, as well as lost workdays waiting for repair service. "It never works and they never fix it."

As a result, Shapiro plans to switch to DSL service as soon as his credit with Cablevision runs out, at which time he may also upgrade from Windows NT to Windows 2000. Moreover, as a network administrator, security is never far from his mind. Shapiro has experimented with several personal firewalls. "I had used ZoneAlarm and other freeware and shareware, but so far I really prefer [Network Ice's] BlackIce [Defender]."

At the end of the day, however, Shapiro's home network gives him everything he wants from it. He has the equipment and the knowledge to make his setup grow with him and his wife-to-be. Maybe the neighbors will start to notice.

SNAPSHOT: Ryan Shapiro

OCCUPATION: NT/network administrator for a brokerage firm

HOME NETWORK: Proxim Symphony (PC Card $149; ISA card $129; Proxim Inc., 800-229-1630, www.proxim.com/symphony)

COMPUTERS: Gateway Pentium III Windows NT server, Gateway Pentium II running Windows 98 Second Edition, Toshiba Libretto notebook with PC Card adapter