NEW TO WIRELESS

If your college has wireless available, you need a card or other device in your computer to connect to the wireless AP at the college. Many laptops come equipped with internal wireless devices. Absent that, a PCMCIA wireless card will work.

At home, you need an Access Point for your wireless device to connect to. The Access Point may be a combination router/AP, or you may add an AP to a router. High Speed dial up (ADSL) is good -- so is Cable fast access. If not available in your area, you can use dialup. Many routers will operate an external dial up modem.

Whatever you get, note that 802.11b is the most common wireless used. There is also 802.11g (which is backward compatible with 802.11b) and 802.11a. Many devices are both a and b compatible, some are compatible with all three. If security is an issue, try to buy devices capable of WPA encryption (WEP encryption has flaws which make it relatively easy to break the encryption).

You need:

A wireless card for your laptop (to receive any wireless signals in the area)

A wireless router for your house (to send out a signal when you're at home, your wireless card would pick up this signal)

In order for a wireless router to work, you need to be subscribed to a broadband connection (DSL, cable modem, T1 ethernet, etc).  Dial-up won't work.

If you have a desktop computer at home, then you might want a wireless pc card for that.

 

The way it works is that the cable wire will be connected to the cable modem.  The cable modem will be connected to your wireless router.  The wireless router sends out an internet connection which your laptop will pick up. 

 

 

Thanks Everyone!

 

This information is great...my next question is do I need an ethernet card?  I am going to be having a cable connection through comcast digital cable....is an ethernet card the same as a wireless card?

No, an ethernet card is a standard NIC which connects by cable to the router, switch or cable modem. You could get a wireless router and attach that to the cable modem and use the wireless connection to connect to the internet or you could get an ethernet card and connect directly to the modem by cable. The wireless router allows you to wander around within range of the router while you are surfing. The ethernet card limits you to the length of the cable and you don't want to be moving around a lot or you'll pull the modem over onto the floor and break it if you aren't careful.

It's not a bad idea to have both because sometimes you may find one option is available and the other isn't. Ethernet cards are relatively inexpensive. Get a 10/100 card.

I just got my computer connected through comcast cable and I was wondering what I needed to protect my computer and files from online invaders??  Do I also need a router for a PC or is that just for laptops? Thanks

A router provides a level of security and an option to add other computers at a later time to your cable connection. If you get a wireless router, it will have ethernet connectors and you can use it either wired or wireless. If you are going to use it for wired connections exclusively, you can disable the wireless capability for security or go with a wired only router which is cheaper.

Don't rely on the router as you only protection. At a minimum use XP's firewall. A better choice is ZoneAlarm, a free firewall. ZoneAlarm Pro is a retail version which is easier to configure. There are others on the market. McAfee has one and there are a number of shareware one. Most of the reviews I've seen give ZoneAlarm the best reports, but things change all the time.