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Your connected home—a room by room perspective

Home networking 101The home of tomorrow. The digital home. The connected home. The wired home. Maybe you’ve heard one of these terms before. Maybe this is your first time hearing any of them. Maybe you’ve heard all of them and wondered what the difference is. No matter where you fall, there seems to be one common question—what does it mean?

In a nutshell, a connected home is one that uses networking technology to allow you to share information from room to room quickly and easily. Rather than embark on a lengthy explanation of the possibilities, let’s explore the connected home room by room. Note-taking is not required.

Rooms

The office

Maybe you don’t really have an office. Maybe it’s a basement, or a spare bedroom, or a corner somewhere. Regardless, this is the place where your Internet signal comes into your house and connects to your modem. So let’s just call it your office.

Two things you’ll want here are a Windows Home Server and a Wireless-N router. With up to four terabytes of storage, the Home Server will store all of your music, home movies, pictures, and HD movies, as well as back up every computer in your house. A Wireless-N network has the speed and range you’ll need to transmit everything in your Home Server to any other device in your house, at ranges up to 200 feet. For more information on setting up a network, read PC Magazine’s Networking 101 article.


The living room

Get ready to introduce your home theater system to a new component—the digital media extender. This is a device that connects to your home network and allows you to stream music, movies, videos, pictures and anything else you want from any computer in your home directly to your HDTV and surround sound system. If you have a WiFi camera, you can even view pictures and movies on your TV without connecting anything to a computer.


The kitchen

While the kids are in the living room watching a movie you downloaded yesterday, you can listen to that new Miles Davis reissue (the one you downloaded 20 minutes ago) while you cook dinner. It doesn’t’ matter that the audio files are on the laptop in your bedroom—you can play them on your HP TouchSmart PC. While you’re at it, you can go online and find a recipe to satisfy your craving for Moroccan. Mmmmmm…couscous.


The bedroom

Why should the entertainment action be limited to the living room. Using another media extender, you can enjoy all of the movies stored in your Home Server, and even watch the high-definition TV shows coming in through your Internet connection. If you feel like talking, pick up your IP telephone and use the same connection to talk to friends and family across the globe for free (or close to it). Just add a webcam to make video calls.


Kids' room

Today’s kids have never know a world without video games, and it’s likely that most of the kids you know play them. Increasingly, kids are playing against other people online, making a Web connection an essential part of the equation. An easy way to get your game console or computer connected is using a wireless gaming adapter. Your kid will be able to frag opponents from Tallahassee to Timbuktu.

Those are just a few of the things your connected home will help you do. To learn more, check out our Circuit City Live Connected Home webshow, or get in on the conversation in our forums.


 

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