Anyone who uses a computer wants to connect to something. Either another employees computer, or the company’s file server to be able to use the company’s shared
resources and files, and of course use the computer to connect to the most largest informational network in the world, called the INTERNET. To connect to the internet you can use either a regular network cable line, or use your laptop wireless connection device to connect to the internet wireless router, and be able to get an internet connection without the limitation of being connected to the network cable, and wonder around your house or office without being bound and limited to the network cable length.

The basic things to know about network, is that networks work on addresses. The network is defined by the LAN (local area network) and the WAN (Wide area network).
The LAN is your office, your home, where your computers are connected and the WAN is the outside network, outside your office or home. The internet is the most common WAN out there since today the internet is a vital network that everyone needs to use, since it has an almost limitless information on any subject out there, like a really huge and limitless library of information at the tip of your fingers (using a keyboard or mouse of course).

Now, since we all use the network connection one way or the other, we need some basic understanding of what and how we can use the network.

The basics on a Windows operating system, is the network communication devices. There you can find your LAN network connection and your WIRELESS network connection. At each network tool, you can either use automatic configuration (which will automatically work when you connect to the network) or you can manually define the network IP’s (addresses) and use them as constant unchanging addresses in case it is important for the computer/server not to change addresses so you will be able to reach it from outside using a constant IP from the internet provider.

Sometimes when we connect to the internet or to any other network, we might have difficulties to each the resources we need, like for some reason the internet is not working. So we will want to know if we got the IP (address) we needed that fits the network we are connected to. So we can use simple commands on a command (CMD) screen.

Press the “start” –> “run” and type in “cmd” then Enter.

A black screen will open with a cursor that enables you to type in commands.
type “ipconfig /all” –
You will get a list of addresses:

• The IP is your computer IP
• Subnet mask is the network structure (pool of allowed addresses on the network)
• Gateway – is the IP of the gateway – which is the IP that connects you to the outside network.
• DNSs are the IP’s of the local or outside list of websites that connects the name of a website into an IP and let you reach the websites and browse them. (without DNS you can’t browse the internet unless you know every website’s IP 🙂 ).