Home away from home
I don’t drive a flashy car, own a fancy house, or even watch a big screen TV — but boy, do I have nice computers. When I worked in a cubicle, it chafed me that the equipment I was supposed to use was quite a bit clunkier than what I was used to at home.
One of the many wonderful things about high-speed Internet is that I can get to my home setup from darn near anywhere. It’s easier with Linux or Mac, of course, but since PC laptops are a commodity, the ability to do it with Microsoft Windows is also a good tool to have in the kit.
What is SAMBA?
When you connect a Linux machine and a Microsoft Windows machine to the same Local Area Network, they may not automatically see each other. That is, the Linux machine won’t show up in Windows’ Network Neighborhood nor will the Windows disks be available under Linux. Samba changes that — with it, you can quite easily do both.
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LAN101 - The TCP/IP Network
A LAN is a Local Area Network — it’s a fancy way of saying “the two or three computers in this room, give or take the dozen down the hall.” It implies a fast connection — dozens, hundreds, even thousands of times faster than a dial-up modem. It used to be pretty challenging to hook computers together this way, but the parts got cheaper and the software got smarter.
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