Any chance of a sticky on wireless networking

[sticker]

Hi,
I'm writing this bleary eyed so apologies if spelling etc is ****ed

Been searching this forum and elsewhere to try and get my head around what I need to get to get a wireless network up and working at home, but I'm more confused now then when I started. Having seen the number of threads here surrounding wireless networking I thought that it might be a good idea to get a sticky started on this subject as there must be lots of noobs like me confused on how to go about this. I would also have thought that this will only increase in the future with more and more households having 2 or more PC's.

Anyway if I started off with what I wanted to achieve it may be a good start, if mods agree, as I see it what I want to do must be fairly run of the mill. More complicated set-ups and problem solving could be added later to create a knowledge base?????

Link PC (XP Pro) to laptop (XP Home) to file share and synchronise emails etc
Print remotely
Share broadband
Share dial up internet


So the question is what hardware and software do i need to achieve this

I'm at the stage where I think I need the following;

Hardware
Main PC - PCI card, thinking along the lines of Dlink Wireless Pci Adapter 54mbit Ieee 802.11g
Laptop - PCMCIA card, eg D-Link 54MBPS PCMCIA Cardbus 802.11g Extreme G Wireless Adapter
Printer - ????
Internet/broadband connections???

Do I need an network access point or a router or.....??
Is there a device that can do all the functions I need in one box?

Software
I believe from what I've read that all the software I need will be either in XP or included within the additional hardware, is this correct?

Apologies for posting this but trying to track down all the info from so many places is confusing the hell out of me. I realise that once I have the necessary hardware/software installed then the real fun will start

Regards
John

[Supra]

I'll second that, I have been researching after similar setup as well.

It seems I am more confused then you are though, no doubt it will seem easyonce you know how.

Time for more research.

[jlcrawford]

John to access one PC from another all you need is two wireless cards, if you have your desktop connected to a printer and broadband modem then you can share them with the laptop and not need an access point/Router.However the desktop would have to be on to allow the laptop access to both printer and web.
If yo choose a wireless router then you could connect the modem and printer to this allowing both pcs to operate independantly.
I am not over experienced with wifi but a little searching soon reveals answers from more experienced
Cheers

[KraGorn]

IMHO the best setup is to use a router/hub with a WAP (WiFi Access Point). This provides the ability to create a LAN, either totally WiFi based or mixed wired/WiFi and also allows all PCs to share an ADSL/cable internet connection. Even though you can use one PC as a 'gateway' for another it's not ideal and makes one PC dependent on another. You can also connect a network-attached printer if you want to.

There are many to choose from from brands such as Linksys, Netgear, D-Link, and basically provide the same features. One issue with WiFi at present is that with the various 'standards' some equipement allegedly conforming to one standard can have problems interacting with another brand allegedly conforming to the same standard.

For that reason it's best to equip all PCs with the same brand .. I chose Netgear but any of the common ones will do .. you'll want a '.G' standard for 54Mb notional speed, it's notional because you'll be lucky to get half of that, don't believe the speed claims for WiFi.

The other important feature of a hub is that it's also a hardware firewall which will ensure no external attacks can be mounted against your network .. though of course e-mail-borne trojans etc. won't be blocked, attacks such as MS-Blast are stopped dead in their tracks.

And yes, XP will probably know how to talk to the WiFi cards, if not the accompanying CD will contain the drivers you need. Installation should be pretty painless, configuring WEP or WAP security may take a little fiddling but you NEED to turn on encryption!

[sifer69]

If you are looking for great value ADSL Wireless routers, I can certainly recommend the E-buyer branded range . These are actually made by Origo (see http://adsltech.com). I have the AWR-8210 which seems to have been superceded by AWR-7210:

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/produ...duct_uid=56082

The forums on adsltech.com are fantastic - you won't believe the amount of info and help available (bit like these forums really!).

[JohnS]

One feature to look out for on a router us UPNP which is universal plug and play.

What this does is dynamically open ports in the firewall to allow video and voice, file sahring in porgrams like windows messenger. The netgear834g one does this but a lot of the cheaper/older ones dont.

[Bursar]

It's also a massive security hole, so even if you have UPNP, you'll probably want to turn it off.

Some WIFI kits do not have a particularly good range/reception. I use Netgear and it transmits from downstairs to upstairs/through wall with ease.