peccy

i got a mate with a small businees who wants a mini network setting up...

they have 4 pc's - 2 in one room and 2 in another. and have BT Broadband connected to one machine. others are standalone.

they want to use internet/email on all of them.

i was gonna configure a few pop3 accounts, or will i be better with an exchange server?

have also seen a wireless router that can connect upto 4 pc's to the one connected to broadband that sounds useful?

any help appreciated...

scrappy_doo

No need to use exchange for 4 PC's mate I would just setup the pop accounts or web accounts.
Wireless is ok if you don't have very thick walls and the distance is not great between the rooms.
You will need to setup 1 PC with the router and then enablbe "internet connection sharing" make sure all the IP's are on same range and set the other PC's gateway to the PC with the router on it.

andymar00

First thing i would say is if possible hard wire for network it's a lot cheaper, easy to setup, more reliable and more secure and telephone system can also be run over same network. for wireless the best way to go is a router with builtin ADSL Modem, Firewall and 4 10/100 ports, then you will need 4 Pci wireless cards one for each PC then all four PC's will connect to internet through the router rather than one PC. as for email exchange is very expensive just for 4 PC's workgroupmail software is a similar package and can connect on a single POP3 account and recive mail for upto 10 users and distribute to outlook/outlook express it's about £100.00 you can get a 30 day demo, also i would get a .co.uk for the company from somwhere like free parking who give you email forwarding and web space all in for £10.00.i notice you are in s.yorks i'am a network engineer/consultant from rotherham originaly and i still get up there regularly so if i can help drop me a email

Andy

peccy

cheers think i can just about manage that.

BTW have got the WINGATE proramme http://www.wingate.com/product-wingate.php sounds like this will help do the job?

Gedi

Don't allow connections to wingate from the net unless you know how to secure it.
Skript kiddies playground.

Fatman

I used to run a proxy server with Wingate on my home network. Appalling reliability/stability. I don't think that was entirely down to the user! Moving to a proper router was a great decision.

In your case, I'd run an ethernet network - hardwired if possible, otherwise wireless. Attach the broadband access device to a switch/router to share access to the network. The router will give you some firewall protection. If all PCs are to remain purely as workstations I would use webmail to provide email services. Has the office bought web hosting? That provider may offer webmail. If not, then consider it. If there's PC hardware to allow a non-workstation machine, then you could run software as mentioned above (workgroupmail) and also use the PC as a file/print server.

Tandy

Agree on router above.

Try Vpop3 as an alternative to exchange, very good little program easy to use and set up will grow to about 50 user and well priced.
http://www.pscs.co.uk/products/vpop3/ think you can try it free for 30 days.

Tandy