This Is a Call

Can any of my beautiful readers recommend a good link for connecting PCs? I’m looking for some sort of PC-to-PC software. I have a USB cable designed for PC-to-PC communications, but the software provided is chunkus blowus. (That’s Latin for “blows chunks”, of course.) I’ve been searching Google and NoNags but I haven’t been very lucky. Most of the stuff out there looks like it was programmed for Windows 3.1. Anybody out there running their own little home LAN? It’s got to be possible without buying a router or needing CAT-5, right? Can’t I just do this with USB? (And don’t go telling me to use Microsoft’s built-in Direct Cable Connection because I don’t want to have a computer listening and a host and a guest and all that.) I just want to be able to share files, actually; I’m not even really concerned about sharing printers and / or an internet connection. Help!