About a year and half ago, I decided to network the 2 computers I had laying around with my main system. I was studying for my MCSE (Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer) certification, and decided it was time to implement a home network for myself. Not only would I be able to practice a lot of the examples in the books for networking, get a chance to have some hands on experience, but also this would make life easier (barring any problems that may arise) by allowing me to share my devices with my main system.

I decided to purchase the Netgear kit, and much to my surprise, it couldn't have been easier. Literally I plugged the cards in (with the machines turned off of course), booted the machine up, and, "wow" there it was, detected with no issues. From there, pop in the disk provided, locates and installs drivers, and it's done. This was done in Windows 98SE at the time.

I figured, okay, if it was that easy there, what about with the older Win 95 machine. Again, no problems. Later my main machine got the overhaul, and is now running Windows ME and Windows 2000 Professional dual boot. Again, no issues there. Amazingly, this product does not seem to have any issues with installation at all.

Currently I am running DSL and have a freeware program installed on the main system to allow proxy sharing (sharing the internet connection) and all machines have no issues sharing the connection.

This kit has allowed me to do the following, and if your are looking for any of the following situations, my suggestion is to look at this kit:

* Share an internet connection
* Share my printer and scanner
* Share my CD burner (I suggest copying it to the local machine before burning though, as a network hiccup or lag could cause an issue)
* Practice for my MCSE tests
* Share files
* Play multiplayer TCP/IP games over local network

If you have any need for the above, this network kit is probably the best solution for that. It comes with 2 cards (10/100 auto-sensing cards), 1 hub (only 10Mb/s, but can be upgraded at a later time), 2 cables to attach to the hub, and the software (and of course manual).

Most people are going to wonder why only 10Mb/s for the hub. Well, simply put, the hub is the most expensive part to make it Fast Ethernet (100Mb/s), and therefore to keep costs down, they opted to go with the 10Mb/s hub. Because the cards are 10/100 auto-sensing cards, this is easy to upgrade at a later time. But before you do, keep this in mind...if you are sharing an internet connection, it will not be any faster (this includes all broadband to date, such as Cable or DSL). It probably won't improve gaming speed. So, with that in mind, it may speed up printer sharing, and file sharing, but that's about it.

SUMMARY - Almost 2 years using this kit, and it's been great. Easy install (in all Windows platforms from 95-2000 & ME). 10Mb/s is faster than most people realize (consider this, DSL and cable aren't faster than 10Mb/s yet, and don't look to be any time soon). Allows for a multitude of real-world applications, such as sharing your internet connection and printer. Simply put - GREAT BUY!



Recommended: Yes

Amount Paid (US$): 79.99
Driver Availability: Windows only