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OK, I'm a total noob at anything networking because I'd never had more than 1 computer until my mom's office issued her a laptop that she doesn't use. I can't tell hardware specifics, but here's a little info:

Objective - I just want to connect my pc and laptop together, like LAN. No fancy networking crap, just connect a laptop to the PC so I can transfer files.

Hardware - The laptop is an IBM R40, not sure about which variant though, as different R40s have different networking stuff, but distuingishing features are WinXP Pro, P4 2.0Ghz processor. It's got a...port looking thing where you plug in the...standard phone cable thing for dial-up, and right beside it is another port thing, but it's wider than the standard phone thing. I suspect that this is the RJ45 (I'm not sure. I don't know what's an RJ45 so I'm guessing). My PC has no LAN hardware whatsoever, but I plan to buy this if it can make the network work: http://www.villman.com/products/specs/linksys/usb100m.asp?code=usb100m&ref=linksys/usb100m.asp.

Questions - So, if I buy the usb network adapter, what else would I need? I mean what kind of cables or anything, and what do I have to do -- simply plug in the adapter, install drivers, and connect whatever cable was needed on the fat phone port looking thing on the laptop and the fat phone port looking thing on network adapter? BTW, the fat phone port looking thing on the laptop has a picture beside it, some sort of label that looks like this (if it were ASCII)


Come to think of it, the label looks just like the label on the network adapter.

So, what do I need to buy? It would be great if you could specify the complete shopping list, or something. Thanks for the help, if any.

The easiest way is get a NIC card for the pc (10 bucks), then get a Network Crossover cable to connect the machines directly. If you are using a hub or router then get 2 CAT5-Straight-thru network cabbles and plug each machine into the router/hub. Optimal setup is to have a router connected to the internet, and both pcs plugged into the router (preferably a router handling DHCP and NAT)

hope this helps

That is a RJ45, or ethernet port. That is all your laptop needs. Since it's WinXP, it's pretty safe to assume you have the proper protocols already installed. The easiest way to connect it to another computer is just plug an ethernet cable from each computer into a hub or router. Make sure some resource is shared on each computer and thats it. Enable DCHP and check to obtain IP automatically if using the router. I think the IP's have to be set manually if just using a hub.

I use a SMC router like this one. http://www.smc.com/index.cfm?sec=Products&pg=Product-Details&prod=257&site=c

I use to to split my cable modem with 3 computers and to share files.
It works very well, and I bought it on sale for about $30 ($50 mail-in rebate). Which was quite cheap for a router.