Word: modem
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...mind when she cruises clothing stores and comes upon a tantalizing markdown in designer duds. She buys by the armful, goes home to her computer and within a couple of days has set up her own fashion show--on eBay, in full view of anyone with a modem and a yen to bid on the clothes she puts up for auction. Bids race through cyberspace, winners are declared, and Wicker mails the goods to the lucky buyers--and cashes their money orders and cashier's checks, sometimes for a tidy profit and always with the thrill of a successful sale...
...Trust me on this: once you get high-speed access to the Net and it's at your disposal all the time, you'll understand what all the hoopla is about. It's faster than my connection at work. My two phone lines, which were always tied up with modem traffic, are now always free. My daughters can connect to AOL without ever hearing a busy signal. And my wife can buy things on eBay fast, without having to wait through endless page reloads. So not all of it is good news. Still...
Within a day of getting online, however, I realized I needed two things: a home network so the two computers in my office could share the cable modem, and a fire wall to protect my machines. The fire wall was especially urgent, I felt. It spooked me to leave my PCs connected to the Net all day unattended. The simple security solutions--unplugging them or disabling file sharing-- didn't work because I needed to share files with my wife. And I can never remember to unplug the modem at night. I ended up getting BlackICE Defender, a $39 piece...
...home network, I chose 3Com's HomeConnect Home Network Kit ($149), which allowed me to link my two machines and modem via telephone wire. Note: you'll need to open up each PC and drop in a PCI card, which used to make me nervous back when I wasn't so shallow and pathetic. Now I enjoy doing stuff like that. It makes me feel manly...
...downside to the high-speed experience? Setting up a home network and fire wall involves considerable fiddling. I needed (and got) tech support from both 3Com and Network ICE. And naturally, within hours of finally getting my network and fire wall working, my cable modem crashed. I called Cablevision on Thursday at 7 a.m. to report it. The company said the earliest it could get someone to my house was Sunday. Some things never change...