In the past, I've had a desktop and two laptops crunching here. Recently, I was given several machines to add to my crunching and have had to get organized in terms of how everything is connected, etc. I also have a few tablet devices (ios) that all connect wirelessly. Connectivity is via dsl. The current dsl modem also is a wireless router. I also have a second wireless router that is cascaded off the dsl modem (from when the previous dsl modem did not do wireless). Both have the standard four ethernet ports. I am presuming (I think reasonably) that ethernet connected is faster that wireless so I am wanting to connect all my crunchers via ethernet and leave the cascaded router for wireless connections to the existing tablets (I am reserving the dsl modem's wireless for new soon coming smartphones to keep the load balanced). While the four ethernet ports on the cascaded router are sufficient in combination with the four on the dsl modem, it makes connecting machines to BOINCTasks rather challenging. The simplest (and cheap) solution would seem to be to connect a five port ethernet splitter to the dsl modem. My understanding is the additional ethernet ports appear as if they are part of the dsl modem - ie, machines connected via the splitter's ports will have IP addresses from the range assigned to the dsl modem. I'd like to confirm that before running out to grab a splitter tomorrow.

Also, the eight-port KVM I'm connecting all my crunchers to has a shared USB port. It's just one but I'm realizing that it could be rather handy. Top choice at this point is to connect my printer to it. Yes, I have to define/"install" the printer to each machine as if it was directly connected but I have one printer I can print to if needed from any machine (as long as that machine's port is the active one on the KVM). For a few bucks, I can grab a USB splitter (probably a four-port) and add an external hard drive (or more). This could be handy for keeping external backups. It could also provide some potentially very handy redundancy in that I could install a piece of software on an external hard drive (vs. a specific machine) and be able to run it on any machine. If a specific machine gets fried in some way, I wouldn't be dead in the water with using that software. I do suspect there may be a problem with that train of thought though in terms of registry entries and how this could appear as a way to try to circumvent licensing limits. As I understand things, I should be okay in terms of printing and backups (though I expect each machine would need its own partition on any external hard drives and I'd have to kick off any actual backup manually instead of scheduling them). In terms of software, I'm probably going to have to install that in a primary machine's partition and a secondary machine's partition with a hopefully common data directory. The specifics of the software could well be a factor with that.

That's the problem with doing your own research on the net. Misconceptions that creep in can be hard to catch, at least early. Sorry for all the detail but it hopefully makes it fast and easy from someone to say that will work fine or you're all wet or if you're going that route, you could also do this too. Any thoughts, suggestions, and warnings will be much appreciated!