How can you set up one internet connection to connect 2 computers to the internet?

Question

I have residential cable modem internet access in my home. Is it possible to set this up to give my desktop and my wife's laptop both access to the internet at the same time?

Also, my desktop is Windows and my wife's laptop is a Mac, but I feel like that shouldn't make a difference b/c both machines have cat-5 ports

Answer 1

All of the answers pertaining to routers are pretty much correct. I would recommend either Office Depot or http://www.newegg.com for the cheapest (yet pretty reliable) routers.
You can do a simple wired router configuration to enable internet sharing, but the problem is that you would have to run an ethernet cable from the router to the computer that you want to connect to the internet (could be a problem if it's in another room).
Fortunately, wireless routers and wireless PCI cards (for desktop computers) are fairly cheap these days. I picked up a D-Link Router for less than $50 and a D-Link PCI card for about $35.
Installing the router and PCI cards are extremely simple (especially since most come with easy to understand manuals). The only thing you have to worry about after this (with wired and wireless networks) is network security. Make sure that if you're not (well, even if you are) using an external firewall such as IPCop that you use 128bit encryption (WEP) and a security software such as ZoneAlarm that offers wireless protection.
Hope this helps!

Answer 2

While you can do this by setting up the desktop to share an internet connection and installing a second nic card, it would be Safer, faster, and easier to just buy a inexpensive router to handle the task. You should be able to buy a used wired router on ebay for less than 25 bucks.

Answer 3

well i'm assuming you have on one side a cable modem and on the other side two computers, whic u can connect via a network cable (cross wire).
what u have to do is : buy the crossover network cable
install the cable modem on the pc and configure the pc for internet acces.
install a proxy server app, such as igate
configure the mac to access the internet through the proxy server , pointing to the pc's ip address

Answer 4

get a router for them, goes between the modem and the pcs, and macs and wwindows can share the same connection

Answer 5

All I know my husband set up a network connection and we run three computers on it. Stuff you can by at Radio shack

Answer 6

you need a router. the coolest hing would be to make the laptop wireless with a wireless router, though you would need a wireless network card (i think mac calls it an "airport" card)

Answer 7

get a router and some softwares like "CCProxy" to connect the other computer...

- Jin

Answer 8

use a router. I have my tivo and computer hooked up to one account and use to have another computer on it too before it blew up.