With every new Xbox 360 purchase, you get a 1-month free Gold membership to XBOX LIVE. There are two membership levels, the Free Silver Membership that gives you access to community features, friends lists etc, and the Premier Gold membership (monthly fee) which allows you to play online multiplayer games. In xbox live you can play games in multiplayer mode, get High Definition Movies, watch TV shows and more. Whether your friends are across the street or on the other side of the globe, you can play with them from the comfort of your home.
Connect your Xbox with homeplug powerline home network
Using your powerline wiring to create a home network is a good alternative option when you don’t have normal network ethernet cables between the rooms of your home, or if you don’t want to use wireless wifi technology. In this post I will show you how to connect your xbox 360, located in one room of your house, with your Internet router which might be located in another room of the house, using just the electrical power line infrastructure of your home.
You will need two wall Plugged powerline adaptors (network extenders), which basically plug in the power outlet and provide you with a normal 10/100Mbps Ethernet port. Through the electrical wiring, these network extender adaptors create a data network over the power wires. See pictures below: (pictures taken from Microsoft)
Room with Internet Router
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In the room with your internet router, connect one end of the ethernet network cable (red wire) to the wall-pluged network extender (left picture) and the other end to your router (right picture).
Room with your XBOX
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In the room where your Xbox is located, use another network ethernet cable to connect your second PowerPlug Network extender to the network port of your Xbox 360. The wall plugged network extender will use the power lines of your house to communicate with the network extender located in the room with the Internet Router, thus providing internet connectivity to your xbox.
An excellent product to use for extending your network connectivity using the electrical wiring is the NETGEAR XAVB101 Powerline AV Ethernet Adapter Kit
Xbox Live Six Years On – What’s Next?
Microsoft ’s Xbox Live is six years old and has come a long way since it launched in November of 2002. Xbox Live started out as a multiplayer gaming network, but today the more than 8 million users with Live accounts do much more than just play games. Last100 looks at the state of Xbox Live today, and explores how Microsoft might enhance it in the future. Check it out in the following post: http://www.last100.com/2007/11/22/xbox-live-five-years-on-whats-next
If you want to win a FREE Xbox 360 Elite and the new Halo Wars Game, click the banner below:
Xbox 360 Home Network Setup
Xbox 360 Home Network Setup
A home wired network can be used to connect your Xbox game console (or any other network-ready game device, such as Playstation or Wii) with your personal home computer, and with your Internet Router for accessing Xbox Live resources.
Setting up a home network doesn’t have to be a scary task. The network diagram below shows a simple home network setup with an Xbox device and a personal computer.
You will need a Cable/DSL Modem and a Cable/DSL Router (these two devices can be the same device if you buy an integrated Cable/DSL Router-Modem). As you can see above, the Modem device connects to your Wall Jack ( which can be a Telephone Jack if its a DSL modem or a Cable Jack if its a Cable modem) in order to get connected to your Internet Service Provider. Then, the modem connects to your Cable/DSL Router, which has many Ethernet RJ-45 ports, in order for you to connect your network home devices (XBOX, PC, Printer etc). You will need a network cable (Ethernet cable), which comes with the Xbox 360 device, to connect it to your Router, as shown in the pictures below:
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First turn off your Xbox 360 and connect one end of the Ethernet Network Cable to the I/O port on the back of the Xbox, and the other end of the cable to the Internet Router. Then, start your Xbox 360 and create your gamer profile to get started with both the Xbox 360 system and Xbox Live.
If you want a suggestion for a great Internet Sharing router model, then the Linksys WRT160N Ultra RangePlus Wireless-N Broadband Router
After connecting your Xbox console you will want to start playing games right? Before doing that though, I suggest you make a backup copy of each game CD you have. You don’t want to have your expensive video game CD scratched and destroyed. Just make a backup copy for it to have it for ever. However, make sure that you have the original game in order to make a legitimate copy backup.