Connecting Two Computers Directly Together

Computer networking has been around for decades, but the number of people that actually learn to do it has been limited to a small niche. People are becoming more and more dependent on their computers - even young children in school are expected to be able to use their computers to do research and to type documents. My question is, if computers are more of an integral part of our lives than they've ever been, how come are we still stuck at the "computer knowledge" levels of the mid 90s? We've always known how to browse the internet and type documents, but besides learning the tricks of different programs and operating systems, our knowledge has largely stopped there - and it stopped well over a decade ago. I'll give you an example.

I recently visited a professional photography and print shop and discovered that two computers set no more than four feet apart had no connection to each other whatsoever. The users are using flash drives to store massive photo files (roughly 1 minute to save to the drive) and walking them around the table and loading them onto the other machine (roughly 2 minutes to copy from the flash drive to the computer). I asked why they did it that way and the answer I got was "Well sometimes we email them, but I think this is a little bit faster." Email? Really? Those computers are four feet apart! It is time for the average-to-knowledgable computer users out there to learn how to directly connect two computers, once and for all.

Unfortunately connecting two computers directly isn't as simple as waving my magic wand and wishing for it to happen. It isn't as simple as changing a couple of settings in Windows and linking them up with a cable you have sitting in your basement, either. You are probably going to have to hit the store.

Note: The easiest way to connect two computers that are nearby eachother is to use a crossover cable (described below). Alternatively, two computers can be connected wirelessly or through a router.

Most of us are familiar with the normal Ethernet, or Cat5 cable. You know, it's the gray (or blue, or yellow) cable that you use to connect your computer to your cable or dsl modem, or router. It has the plastic end connectors that look strangely like telephone connectors, but are wider.

You are going to need a cable similar to one of those. The difference isn't in the cable itself - in fact they look pretty much identical - but in the way the cable is wired. Normally when you connect two network devices the devices are differnet, ie: a computer and a router, a router and a modem, etc etc. However, two computers are similar network devices, and therefore must be connected differently. I won't go into great detail, but it has something to do with bi-directional simultaneous communication.

The normal network cable you're familiar with is often referred to as a Patch cable. The one you need to connect your two computers is called a crossover cable. You need to make sure that the store clerk knows what you're talking about, because you don't want to walk out with the wrong one. It needs to say crossover on the packaging.

Crossover cables, as mentioned above, have a different wiring scheme in the end-connectors than a Patch cable. The actual wire used is exactly the same, but the way the eight inner wires are arranged is what makes the difference. A network engineer, or just some kid that took a class in Network cabling like myself, can actually make a crossover cable with roughly $3, some end connectors, and a wire crimper. Barring that, you'll probably end up spending $15-20 dollars at the store for a 4-6ft crossover cable.

You're going to need to change some settings in Windows (on each computer) in addition to having the right equipment. We'll talk about those settings in the next article of this series.