Home network

At my house, I have built a home network.  It isn't that complicated but it surprises me when I find this is not what everyone has so maybe it is a little more special than I realize.  I enjoy this sort of thing and it gives me a sense of accomplishment.  When I move forward incrementally, I feel that I am doing good and progressing as a human being.  My system includes the following:  a MacBook laptop, Motorola high-speed cable modem, Apple Extreme Base Station, wireless Canon printer, Mini Stack external hard drive, FM Transmitter, iPod Nano and Touch.  It is strange to think that just a few years ago, we had dial-up internet.  It took me a long time to go to cable but I am happy that we have.  Since we have, I will say that Charter Communications, our internet service provider, has been very good.  Their speed is great and we rarely have an outage.  The access speed has increased the things that we can do, video for example is not at all enjoyable with dial-up.  The wi-fi has also given us many options.  We can now take the lap-top to the kitchen table and we can listen to the iPod Touch from anywhere in our house.  This may all sound like bragging but to me it is more about connections and availing ourselves to what is out there.  At some point, I would like to acquire another lap-top, perhaps a MacBook Air.  It would also be nice to have Apple TV and/or an Amazon Kindle.  Those are end user components that would give us more options.

My advice to those who are building their home network would be to start small with something that you can understand, do a lot of reading, pay cash for everything, and progress from there.  It is important that you are enjoying what you have.  I would not buy something or add to your network just because you want to impress someone or others say that you have to have it.