Dear User Group Leader:

Once again, I must say thanks for the great response to our previous 
calls for annoyances, gripes, and complaints about Excel, and the 
Internet,
and other topics. The email we received was useful and gave our
Annoyances books a great head start.

As you might guess, we have yet another book in the wings--this one
focusing on home networking annoyances. Everything from cabling hassles 
to
setting up a router to wireless access points to fussing with TCP/IP
settings to installing a shared printer. Whether you've set up a wired
(Ethernet, phoneline, or powerline) or wireless (802.11a, b, or g)
network, merely shared a DSL line, or networked a bunch of PCs and 
Macs,
feel free to share the annoyances you've encountered along the way.

If you or any members of your group have home networking annoyances 
you'd like to see solved, email marsee@oreilly.com with "Home 
Networking
Annoyances" in the subject line. Please note what hardware, software,
and/or service is giving you grief (e.g.: a LinkSys Cable/DSL Router 
with
4-Port Switch, SMC's EtherPower II network cards, SBC DSL, Windows XP,
etc.).

As thanks for sharing, we'll make sure to get copies of "Home 
Networking
Annoyances" sent to your group shortly after publication.


--Marsee



***

An example:

The Annoyance:
I added a new computer to my network, but it doesn't appear in My 
Network
Places or Network Neighborhood on any of the other computers. The 
Windows
help files tell you to reboot all the other computers on the network in
order to see the new computer, but there's got to be a better way!

The Fix:
There is. Assuming your hardware connections are working, and you've
created at least one shared resource on the new computer, you don't 
have
to reboot the rest of the network to see the new computer.

Wait twelve minutes. Honest. Could I make that up? Get a cup of coffee,
empty the dishwasher, or change all the burned out light bulbs in the
house. Then open the network folder again, or press F5 to refresh the
display if you didn't close the folder. You should now see the new
computer.

Why does this happen? The icons in the network folders (My Network 
Places
and Network Neighborhood) are controlled by a service called the 
Computer
Browser Service, which browses the network, peers down the pipes
(including the virtual pipes of wireless connections), and checks to 
see
who's on board. In a peer-to-peer network, the computers elect one of
their own as a browser master using a complicated scheme that involves 
a
private conversation among the computers (held secretly so you aren't
aware of it and can't control or interfere with it). The browser master
runs the browser service every twelve minutes, and populates the 
network
folders of all computers on the network with icons representing the
computers it finds.