Hi all im looking to hook up a wireless network at a friends house. it'll be coming from a telewest cable modem, so i assume i'll need a wirless cable router/hub not too sure how it work for cable and wireless im used to adsl and wires lol . any advice on something cheap? it's got to provide one cabled pc and then 2 wireless pc's which i guess i'll need a wireless card or dongle? (are those dongle's ok?? or should i go for cards?) as well as one mac laptop. any advice much appritated. sorry for all the q's Prae
Wireless is a bit like wired, minus the mess, but adding in the security features... So don't worry, if you have set up a wired network successfully you'll manage this too. So, for hardware, you're either looking for a modem/router/wireless access point combo; a modem, a router and a wireless access point or a modem and a router with wireless built in. (I personally recommend the last and the first, in that order). Most routers come with a 4port switch integrated so that solves your wired problem. Type's, brands... everybody has a favour, I myself have never had problems with D-link or Linksys, but never got Belkin to work correctly... Others have other experiences. For the PC's, dongle's or cards... I personally have used both, and had succes with both. But I can't tell what is better... But I guess cards have better reception, because they use bigger external antenna's... For the mac, No expirience there... But I think they require an airport dongle or something alike... But what I do need to stress is security for a wireless network (certainly if they live in a densly populated city...) WEP is easily crackable, but will stop the ones who are just looking for easy downloads, WPA is quite secure, but requires the harware to support it (which most nowadays do, not sure on the Mac hardware... but probably it does...) Leaving it unsecured (without adding in MAC filtering or something alike) will attract people looking for easy downloads or other illegal stuff... And you don't want that... very nasty Also, look for a 802.11g setup, a or b is really outdated. And again, most g hardware supports WPA encryption. Don't know if the n standard is out allready (I think I read about a Linksys router that supported it allready, but not sure) If you can find that at a good price, go for it
ok thanks for that got abit fo looking around and comparing to do now, will let ya know how it goes and thanks again
