Yes, it is possible, but I wouldn't recommend it. It is a very poor man's way
to connect to the Internet. I would worry too much about the insecurity of
doing it. Even if (when) I have only one computer (like in a hotel), I worry
about being on the Internet without a router.
So I (strongly) recommend buying a router. Not just a hub or switch, but a
router. A typical router (e.g. Linksys, NetGear), is also a switch. A router
is a firewall. You can access the Internet, but it is very difficult for
others (even your ISP) on the Internet to get to your computers. They can
only "see" as far as your router.
With a router (switch), you don't need to turn on both computers to access
the Internet. You plug your modem into the router (into the WAN connector),
and there are usually 4 ports to plug up to 4 computers into the router.
Each computer (independently) accesses the Internet, through the router. The
router is also a little DHCP server giving you a local area network (LAN),
with your own local set of IP addresses, such as 192.168.1.100,
192.168.1.101, etc. The router from your "side" (inside), will have an
address like 192.168.1.1, which you can put in Internet Explorer, which lets
you set up the router.
You pretty much just plug the Cat5 cables into the router and computers (but
not directly between the computers). Now you can access the Internet, and/or
access each other computer, at the same time.
On each computer, in My Computer, Local Disk (C
, right click and select
Sharing and Security. In the middle block, share your drive C, use share name
C. You can also just share particular folders if you want.
On the other computer, you can Map a Network Drive to the first computer,
and vice versa. Pick any letter, and in the folder box, put \\192.168.1.101\C
or \\192.168.1.100\C, as appropriate.
HTH.
