Networking

Now that so much entertainment including Netflix movies, YouTube videos, Pandora radio and Flickr photos can be streamed from the Internet, you may feel hindered by having to lean into your computer to experience all that content. Wouldn’t you rather lean back on the sofa in front of the biggest screen in the house? The most basic thing you need is home-network access within reach of the TV.

A router is a switching box programmed to send data where it needs to go. Large routers connect networks over the Internet. Small routers connect computers and other devices on a home or office network, also called a Local Area Network (LAN).

Using a notebook computer as a source for HD content to be viewed on a big screen TV is becoming more and more common. With easy access to downloadable HD content and notebooks having hard drives large enough to store HD content and enough muscle to process it, there’s no reason not to view the content on an HDTV.

There once were two ways to get a signal into a TV: an RF connector  for antenna or cable and an A/V for composite video and stereo audio. Then, the VCR age succumbed to HDTV, inputs multiplied, and buying a set became more like shopping for a computer. So let's take a look at the inputs to see which ones are hot and which are not.

One of the most daunting technical challenges facing small businesses as they start up is choosing a data-storage system. The concepts underlying storage arrays go over most people's heads. Even when understood, the rigid structure demanded by RAID arrays means figuring out exactly how much storage you'll need for the foreseeable future.

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