Networking with CLIP and Windows 95/98/ME
Have you ever thought about networking your office computers together but decided it was too expensive and too complicated? Well with Windows 95 all that has changed. Now it is possible to set up a peer-to-peer network in your office quickly and relatively inexpensively. No servers, no NetWareÒ-based network, no Certified Network Engineer charging $100.00 per hour. You just need a minimum of two computers that run Windows 95, network adapter cards and some cable. Of course you’ll need the Multi-User version of CLIP for Windows to complete your network.
Here is a little network trivia. A network is a group of computers connected to each other or to a central server so they can exchange files, share resources, and run common programs.
· Exchanging files means that you can send and receive files from other people on the network without having to leave your computer. The purpose is to get information from another computer without having to transfer the information to a floppy disk and inserting it into your computer.
· Sharing resources refers to common hardware that several computers can use on the network. These resources include printers and hard drives.
· Running common programs refers to applications kept on other computers. This can be done by accessing another computer from your computer (called peer-to-peer networking) or by accessing a computer dedicated as a file server (called client-server networking). An excellent common program to run on a network is CLIP.
Client-Server networking requires a dedicated main computer called a file server that serves out files and programs to other computers on the network. The file server requires special network-server software to make it operate the network. The file server computer and its accompanying software can be very expensive to setup. However, if your company is constantly sharing files and programs this is the way to go. File server networking is almost as fast as working on your own computer.
On a peer-to-peer network the computers are link to each other via a cable. There is no dedicated file server, however each computer in the network can act like a file server. The major drawback to peer-to-peer networks in the past was that when another user in the network accessed your computer everything slowed down to a crawl. Networking with Windows 95 solves this problem. Though there is some speed depravation, the system does not slow down to a crawl. Peer-to-peer networking is the most cost effective networking solution for a small business that wants to connect two or three computers together.