To get it to stay on top, you can use something like windowblinds (www.stardock.net). Some of the skins support this (such as Win2k_Extended). I don't know if there's a shareware version still available.

Home networking, two basic choices: two ethernet cards in one machine & some software like Wingate (also a firewall software like Blackice Defender) where one NIC is your internal network and one is to your internet connection (assuming DSL or Cable), or alternately a piece of hardware that acts as a hub/switch and firewall. There are a lot of these. A good place to start is to practicallynetworked.com. Either way is not too difficult, but requires some footwork to determine what you need. I don' t think you'll have a hard time, since you've come this far. If you have a dial-up some of these hardware solutions will still work, as they have modems or allow for external modems.

-Zeke

just say you weren't paying much attention...