Basic design intro for a novice

There are volumes on this and if you want to do anything involved, I'd recommend speaking with a Network Engineer. That said, I'll be glad to give you my basic 2 cents worth (the other engineers will charge more). ;)

First off, what you'll be able to get from Network Solutions is a domain name (something like www.myniftynetworkedbusiness.com). The IP addresses will be provided from your ISP. There are many ways to go about this sort of thing and your specific needs will dictate what is the best solution. You may need a t-1, fractional t-1 etc. A shared DSL or Business cable solution may work based on your bandwidth requirements. They will provide you with a range of addresses (or just one!). If you want each machine to have an assigned IP address, you can statically assign them, but this is a rather inefficient and inflexible method. You can set your server to be a DHCP server and automatically assign one of your addresses as a client logs on. Another popular solution for small lans is to set up address sharing on a server then have a private and public interface. One network card on the server goes out to the Internet (often set by DHCP at your ISP) and the other network card is set up as a "default gateway" with a private address. These are typically 192.168.X.X or 10.0.X.X

You may find some useful info at this site on setting up a small LAN:
http://www.nwfusion.com/net.worker/research/smallnet.html

Good Luck!!!

Why go through the trouble with network solutions, it is much esier to tell your provider I need X IP's and they will also help with the DNS issues and help keep costs down. You may not need and public IP for every client and is you can get away with one it may already be provided. It is not in the scope of a normal small business to go for a block of numbers. Your provider more than likely already assignes you a number or two for the public connections and then you would use NAT on the router or firewall keeping the inside on a private range. This will reduce costs by great magnitude. then you could set promissions for intranet for only the inside addresses and you have a secure intranet. If outside access to the intranet is desired then use NAT and a good firewall to open a conduit to the inside on an IP that is not published via DNS. Every situation is diferent and carefull consideration should be given to every diffrent situation.

Regards
James