okay, so I have a dilemma. As we know, I've moved. I have my desktop computer in the house, but haven't hooked it up yet because i haven't unpacked the monitor, plus I don't have a place to put it. I also have a laptop. is there anyway to hook the two together so that I can get a file off of the desktop. Can I use a serial cable?

A serial cable is the "old fashioned" way to do it. I'm not sure if Windows comes with the utility for that anymore. Plus it's way-slow.

You can do it with an ethernet cable (if both computers have a port). You might need a special type of cable (the kind used to connect two hubs) or maybe one or the other computer can adjust for the less-standard way of connecting you want to do. (I forget what exactly this issue is called.)

They're both PCs, right? With Macs it's ungodly easy.

eta: Oh, so you'll be unable to connect a keyboard, monitor, etc to the desktop computer? That complicates things - ideally you'd want to change the network settings on both computers to do this. Maybe you can do it if you know what settings the desktop currently has and adjust the laptop.

You could use a crossover cable to connect the ethernet ports of the two machines. Then you should be able to see both machines on a little two machine network. Details depend on the OS, and how you have the machines configured.

eta: Which is Tommy's option #2.

I looked for the serial port option Tom mentioned in XP, and can't find it. I think it may have been obsoleted.

I had fits trying to connect a computer running XP to a computer running an older version of Windows. I wouldn't recommend it.

Oh yeah - crossover cable.

Many hubs can tell if you're connecting two hubs together with a normal (non-crossover) cable and adjust accordingly. Are there any PCs that do that (if you connect directly to another PC)?

For many computers, a crossover cable is not necessary; the computer will detect what kind of cable is being used and do the right thing.

This is really clunky and inelegant, but I finally ended up syncing both computers to the external drive I use for backup. Both computers will talk to the external hard drive, but my rather elderly laptop will not talk to my desktop, no matter what cable I try. It's like a bad marriage in which people only communicate through their children.

What about just getting a large capacity thumb drive and transferring the files that way? Of course, that would mean you'd have to set up the desktop in some fashion to transfer the files.

Do you have a router to connect to the Internet? Hooking up the two through a router will be a lot easier than connecting them directly.

basically, I'm trying to avoid setting up the desktop. I was hoping that I could just connect the laptop to it in some way and transfer the files, like using the desktop like a giant external drive.

Hey iPhone & iTouch users. Looks like google is stepping it up for us. [link]

I was just playing with mobile.google.com, and it is pretty cool. A bit zippier. Clearly not loading as much junk. Thought I'd share.