Wireless Networking Guide

Wireless networking has been in the mainstream for the last few years, it's appeal is the flexibility it offers in terms of no wires, being able to connect to the internet from literally anywhere in your house, garden or where the range of the wireless router permits

Just how do we go about connecting to the internet wirelessly? A wireless network needs to have two components A Wireless Router/Modem to share the internet connection

A suitable Wireless card in your laptop or desktop Just about every new laptop has a wireless card built in, (the actual type is the mini PCI) But what if you have an older laptop that does not have a wireless network card built in?

Don't despair there are a number of options available to make most laptops wireless.

The best choice is the mini PCI or internal wireless card, the biggest advantage offered by this type of card is that it is installed internally, no obtrusive aerial or anything else sticking out, check online or contact us to find out if your laptop will take one of these type of cards.

Next we have the USB wifi card known as a dongle, it looks the same as a pen drive or memory stick, and out of all network cards is perhaps the easiest to install, just install the software plug in the USB wifi card and your ready to connect to your network.

The downsides of this type of network card are, it sticks out and can be easy to knock, it also has to be removed when you want to travel with the laptop.

Lastly we have the PCMCIA wireless network card, although PCMCIA ports are becoming somewhat redundant just about every laptop has one of two of these long horizontal ports and if your short of USB ports this could be just what your looking for, perhaps not as obtrusive as the USB type, it still needs to be removed when travelling with your laptop though.

Due to the amount of wireless network cards on the market the prices have come down a lot over the past year and now decent wifi cards can be purchased for as little as ?15, by decent I mean either a 54g or 54mpbs type of card, rather than the much slower 802.11b type of cards.

Installing When installing a wireless network card, ensure that you read the documentation prior to installing, most cards need to have the software installed before the card is connected or plugged in, otherwise the software drivers may fail to load properly or Windows will attempt to locate a driver from elsewhere, giving configuration issues.

Now your ready to connect, you should see a popup on the bottom of the screen when a wireless network is in range of the card, click on the popup and you'll be able enter your pass code (if you have one) to connect to your wireless network.

Notes Only use wireless networks your familiar with, especially if you need to disclose credit card details for any reason. If you setup your own wireless network you must ensure that you implement some form of security, if your router is not protected, not only could anyone simply browse from your Wireless network, but if so inclined could be much more malicious, performing such actions as changing your routers password, preventing you from accessing your own internet, they can also see any computers or devices attached to your router and may try to gain access to these.

A good example of this was when a client contracted us to secure her wireless network every so often illicit material was appearing on her printer, as her Wireless network was not secure someone was connecting to her router, browsing the web for illicit material, they even went to the lengths of installing a printer driver and printing this out.

So please make sure any wireless connections are secure, feel free to checkout more on Wireless security, plus all of our other articles at computer-adviser.com

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