A LITTLE NETWORK MAGIC HELPS YOU NETWORK

Setting up a network in your home can be a bit daunting these days. Typical homes often have two or more computers that want to share resources like Internet access, printers, hard drives and the data on them. And to make things worse, what if you have different operating systems in your home like Windows and OS X? Speaking of Windows, the word out is that Vista with it's enhanced security doesn't make things any easier when it comes to setting up a network so you have that to deal with too. And even if you do buy the right equipment such as routers and install the correct software, where do you turn if it all doesn't just work? Maybe what you need is a little Network Magic to help you make the right connections.

Network Magic is a software utility that's designed to help make things easy for you when it comes to setting up and maintaining a healthy network. Network Magic will do all those little niggling things that normally would bring tears to the eyes of even the most competent networking engineer.

Downloading and installing Network Magic from the Pure Networks' website is pretty straight forward. Versions are available for both Windows and Macintosh. You will need to install a copy of Network Magic on every computer connected to your network. Once installed, Network Magic proceeds to analyze your existing setup and helps in making all the connections to all the right places. Once the network is in place you will be able to perform many of the sharing and security function with little to no effort on your part. For example, you will be able to share peripherals like your printer with any other computer on your network. Normally to accomplish this you have to configure a number of Windows settings to be found on several networking dialog boxes. Adding a Macintosh only adds to that number. But when you install Network Magic on each computer on your network, these tasks are done for you automatically. You just begin printing without having to worry about how it's working. Network Magic makes sure it all works. To help you visualize everything, Network Magic creates a one screen home network map so you can literally see which printers are available on your network and which of those are online and offline at any given moment.

If you're tired of sending emails to yourself so you can send attached files to another computer on your network, then welcome to the wonderful world of file sharing on a network. Network Magic makes the process of setting up file sharing across all of your computers easy. As with the printing, just make sure each computer has a copy of Network Magic installed on it and you're pretty much all set to begin sharing files or entire folders between your networked computers.

Network Magic also help the process of maintaining the network's health. When something goes wrong, a large red pulsing button that reads "Repair Connection" appears. Clicking it initiates a Network Magic step-by-step repair wizard that helps you to identify where the breakdown is occurring and in many cases it can fix things automatically. If not, the network wizard steps you through potential solutions to the problem and can even identify if the malfunction is out of your hands and lies with your Internet service provider. If so, you at least have a course of action to take when you do contact them and they try and tell you it's your computer's fault.

Other features include a wireless connection manager that keeps you connected to your preferred WiFi connection whether you are at home or work. It also helps you to set up the encryption features to be found within your network setup.

One other feature they built in is the ability to monitor Internet usage by anyone on your network. This report helps you to monitor where your children are going online and the time they went there. In addition, you can monitor what programs they are using and for how long. Now while there are other products out there that can aid parents to monitor their children's activities, having this ability already built into the networking structure makes things work more seamlessly and smoothly.

Network Magic's price is based on the number of computers connected to the network which makes sense as you have to have a copy of Network Magic installed on every connected computer. 3, 4 or 5 connected computers cost $29.99, $39.99 and $49.99 respectively

www.networkmagic.com