Wireless Network

[bagpuss1]

I have a nice Spankly new shuttle and am just moving in to my own house! I am not a computer wiz and admit to that but what i am after is a wireless network for my house.

What are the best ones on the market at the minute?

Thanks

 

[(Shovel)]

Well, the fastest standard available is the current "54g" range, "G" tends to be the critical letter when marketed on products.

Kit wise you'll need wireless network cards for each computer on the network.

Now, I'm assuming that you are connecting to the Internet on this network:
You can do this one of many ways. Firstly, Windows 98SE onwards has a feature called "Internet Connection Sharing", which means one of your computers connects to the Internet, while all the others connect to that computer to access the connection. If one of your machines is going to be placed next to the connection then you could connect this way.
Connect the Modem/ADSL Modem/Cable Modem to the computer via cables, and then the other computer via the Wireless.

It can, and does, get more complicated though.

Firstly, if you are using more than two computers, if your net connection is not near one of the computers, or if you don't want the other computer switched on most of the time.
In these cases you need to invest in a Wireless Router as well. In practice, everything on your network (Computers and Internet Connection) connect to this and it keeps the network traffic in order.
With the Internet in mind, you can go one furthur and instead of a router purchase a Wireless Firewall - this adds in some security features to protect you from your Internet Connection.

And, if that wasn't enough you do need to pay some consideration to where in your house everything gets positioned, and what the signal will have to travel through to get from the computer to the router. Ideally the router/firewall will be positioned in the middle of everything, though it's common that they get connected by wires to an Internet Connection (otherwise you need yet more hardware).

As for specific hardware: I believe that Linksys do a good and well respected range of wireless products. For example: Router/Firewall and Network Card

I hope that helps get you started anyway

 

[Deadmanwalking]

Oh shovel for gawds sake!!

I had something similar all written out !


Bah

Good advice though

 

[bagpuss1]

Thanks

Thanks for all that info!

it has helped me out no end!!!!!!

 

[wyrd_fish]

at my house we have:

1x ADSL Wireless Router (4xRJ45, one phone line and asome ariels)
4x Windows PCs
1x Linux PC
Some stuff my dad made...

the linux box and 3 win pcs are connected to the router via UTP cables and the 4th win pc by a linksys wireless NIC.

my dad also made this thing that sends temparatuers to the internet... thats mot connected ATM.