If you've put off becoming a part of the wireless society because of its complexity, be put off no more. We're here to help you eliminate the tangle and clutter of cords and untether your computing experience with Wi-Fi, which is short for wireless fidelity. In order to go remote, as we mobile Wi-Fi users call it, make sure you've got three key elements.
One, mobile broadband or DSL connection from either your cable or phone provider. Two, a box like this, also known as a Wi-Fi router, or an access point. Three, a desktop or laptop with a wireless card. Well, what are you doing just sitting there. Are you ready to begin your setup? When a customer sets up wireless for their home, the first step for a user to get Internet access is to set up service with their broadband provider such as their telephone company or cable operator.
They'll be provided a DSL modem from the telephone operator or cable modem from the cable operator. From there they'll connect that device to their wireless access point or their wireless router. Now we're ready to marry the two and get them to recognize one another. From your control panel, select the Wireless Network Setup Wizard. Here you'll name the network, run the wizard and secure your connection. First things first.
You'll need to get your TCPIP address from your Internet provider. It will be a set of numbers that look like this. At this point, you want to make sure that your computer recognizes the new device and that it's seeing the right router. Sometimes our PCs pick up on our neighbor's router and we may log onto their router without realizing this. Keeping this in mind you want to make sure no one else can access your wires connection.
To do this we'll now perform some security tasks within the wizard. The key points when you're configuring the wireless access point is to reset the default administrative password. This will protect you from someone trying to connect and take control of your wireless router. The next step is to provide a unique name and SSID for your access point. The third step is configuration options for your wireless security settings.
This will come in the form as blank or WEP or WEP or WPA which means Wi-Fi protected access. WEP has recently again been broken and it's no longer a secure wireless methodology. When you configure WPA, the biggest thing you have to remember here is to configure the password, if you're using preshared keys to be a very long string of alpha numeric and symbolic characters.
Another setting that you can set is for the SSID or the broadcast name for your wireless access point. For example, you can name it Phil's Home that would basically broadcast to all outsiders that that's your wireless access point. Once you configured your Wi-Fi connection you'll need to test it. Disconnect the router connection from your PC. Look at the bottom right task bar for the wireless icon.
Hopefully you'll see the wireless icon with green signals. Double click on the icon and a box will pop up displaying the connection status and router name. If you're connected to your wireless network, then you're good to go. You need to secure your wireless access points because hackers could use your wireless access point, and you can be held responsible for their illegal activities.
Also, your privacy is at risk if you leave your access point unsecured and unencrypted. It's the same as having your neighbors listen to your telephone conversations; you don't want anybody watching your activities on the Internet. One last tip before you're off to join the rest of the Wi-Fi world, be wary of public wireless connections or hot spots.
Places like coffee shops and restaurants that advertise free Wi-Fi typically don't have encrypted traffic between and you the router; this puts you and your information at risk, so make sure not to do online banking or any other sensitive tasks in public hot spots. Basic surfing is okay, but anything else you'll want to wait until you're on a secured network. For more information, please visit this link.
