ireless at homeen most people talk about wireless networks, they are talking about wirelessLANs (local areaks)Aarea network doesd-- the local area in question can be only one building suclas your house So if you want wireless networking in your home, you want awireless LANOnce people have wireless in their home they always seem to act as if there'seen an absolute miracle After years of drillingd runnres all over the place, suddenly seeing them gone is really amazingThe Myths
Wireless networking is expensive Well, wireless networking used to be expensivewhen it was new, but now the prices have come way down thanks to competitionere are hundreds of manufacturers of wirelessequipment, with something for every budget Your costdepend on how maand how far apart they are but a typical familydo it fothan $100of the computers on whenever you re using the other one you could do it for asttle as $20! Best of all, once you' ve spend the money there's nothing morepay after thatconfiguration on each computer just to get the simplest things to work NowYou cahat yobought, put the CD in the computer andorewirelessrouteradvicevisithttp://wirelessrouterdealsorg
Wireless networking is insecure You might ths dangerous to have all youpersonal data floating aroune air for anyone to read Wedead easy to enabfor your wireless signals It's already difficult fooutsiders to intercept wireless signals at all, and they certainly won't be able todecode them asNot just at homeIt was home users that were quickest to adoptamount to finawires all over their house sincehen though, the technology has started to spread to offices, universities, andsorts or other placesChains of coffee shops and cafes haved that their customehours if they offehotels and airports
This means that once you set up a laptop for wirelessbecomes far more portable than it ever was beforeHow Do wireless networks work?Wireless networks work using radio waves instead of wires to transmit databetween computers That's the simple version If you're curious to know what'sdetail, then it'sOnes and zerosI'm sure you know that computers transmit data digitally using binary: ones andzeros This is a way of communicating that translates very well to radio wavessince the couter can tras and zeros as different kindormorewirelessrouteradvicevisithttp://wirelessrouterdealsorg
beeps are so fast that they ' re outside a human ' s heaadiohatt hear are in fae that doesop acomputer from using them, thoughMorse codee way it works is a lot like Morse code You probably already know that morsedio usidot(short beep) and a dash(long dash)years, and became a great way of getting information from one place to anothewith the invention of the telegraph more importantlthis example, thoughnary systest like a computer's ones and zerosYou might think of wireless networking then as being like Morse code focomputer is able to send out its equivalent of dots and dashes(bits in computerk)to get yota from one place to anotheA∥ About Frequenciesou might wonder, though, how the computer could possibly transmit enough bitshow much can be sent in a second before it just becomes useless nonsenses, but the key to wireless netwoing thatmore data can be sent per second Most wireless connections use a frequency of2
4 gigahertz(24 bild)--a similar frequency to mobilphones and microwave ovens As you might know though a frequency this higormorewirelessrouteradvicevisithttp://wirelessrouterdealsorg
means that the wavelength must be very short which is why wireless networkorks oveIn addition ws networksopping They use dozens of frequencies in the range they are given, andconstantly switch between them this makes wireless networks more immune toerference from other radio signals than they would be if they only transmittedon one frequencyAccess Pointshe final stelen it comes to all the computers on a network sharing internetaccess
This is done using a special piece of wireless equipment called an accessoint Access points are more expensive than wireless cards for one computer, athey contain radios that are capable of talking to around 100 computers at thesame time and sharing out access to the Internet between them Dedicatedaccess points are only really essential for larger networks, thoughave a few computers it is possible to use one of them as the access point, oryou could just get a wireless routeThey Understand each othewell and good, then but how does wireless equipment made by entirelydifferent companies manage to work together whetWell, the answer is that there are standards that all wireless devices follow Thesestandards are technically called the 802 11 standards, and are set by the I(Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineersthanks to people stickleir standards that wireless networking is so easy and cheap to use todayormorewirelessrouteradvicevisithttp://wirelessrouterdealsorg
You Don't Need to worrys talk of frequencies has you a little worried you don 't need to beless networking hardware and software handles all of thlat freqo happen alright? Wireless networking for all its complicated workings is reallyfar more simple to use than you'd ever expect5 Reasons why You Need a wireless NetworkAs far as i'm concerned wireless networks are one of the best inventiog since sliced bread
I mean really, breadeasy enough to cut yourself, but have you ever tried to wire up a network? Sothe spirit of spreading the word, I'm going to give you five reasons why you neea wireless networkShare Internet AccessWireless networking gives you a cheap and easy way to share one Internetconnection between multiple computers, eliminating the need fo
r more than onen even addtwork simply by pluggingeless card aey get an inteconnectiostraightaway! There aren't many wired networks that can say thatShare Files and printersA wirelessfito send them by email, or even by burning them to a CDus, with the printer connected you can also write things wherever you wantormorewirelessrouteradvicevisithttp://wirelessrouterdealsorgpress print and go and collect them from a printer connected to anotherters thed into one of thare shared between all the computers automaticallyPlay Gamesight have seen an option in your favorite game to play over a LAN Wewireless networks are LANs, which means that your whole family can play thatithout needing the computers to be anywhere near each otherandom people over the Internet, not to mention that the game will work muchfaster You could even invite yoends to bring their computers and joiaLAN partyAn added benefit is that wireless equipment lets you easily connect any gameskids might have to the Internet, and start playing online
It'se with a wireless connected xbox or play sta2 than thave to connect it to your modem every timeA/ways Ona big factof broadbandet internet connectionsWell, wireless networking lets networkthat any of your cernet whenever you want! You can take laptops from room to room and itdey'll always have accesseres not eset up a user-name and password system as wireless networks work withoutogging in It's just so convenientNo More wirese biggestess Wires are incopensive, ugly and dangerousdelighted to see the back of themorewirelessrouteradvicevisithttp://wirelessrouterdealsorg
he average Ethernet wire doesn't cost that much per meter, but once youveboenough meters to do whatever you need to dods to add upquickly Not only that, but if you want to run your wire between rooms or floorsenting i know plenty of people in rented apartments who had to keep theilne room until they went wirelesswireless networkingwell you can even take your computer outside, if you want toNo more wires also means no more spaghetti all over the floor and in the cornersNot only does this improve the sadthatof packing all the wires up and re-connecting them at the other end when youve It also means that you don't have to examine every wire for damage ifyour Internet connection breaks dowConvinced?how to set everything up If you don't think it's for you yet well don't give up onealize just how easy and chwireless reallyConfused Yet? wireless Jargonhave anything to do withd withthough: here's a quick computer-speak to English guide to help you get by802
11 The name of the wireless networking standard set by thesurest wireless devices are interoperableDriver a piece of computer software that tells theomputer how to talk toorewirelessrouteradvicevisithttp://wirelessrouterdealsorg
devices that are plugged into it For wireless networking, the drivers you need tocome on a Cd with any equipment you buyEthernet The most common way of connecting to a LAN any wires youomputers together now areconnecting your modem to your computer is probably an Ethernet wire tooGhz Gigahertz a measurement of frequency - one gigahertz is one billion cyclesper second You may recognize the measurement from computer processospeeds which are now also measured in ghzdlectronics Engineers In charge of the wireless networking standard as well asensure that coet made by differentnteroperable
Means that two pieces of equipment are compatibleou can useckd not get anywireless equipment that isnt interoperableLAN Local Area Network a network that is generally confined to one buildingsuch as a home or office a wireless lan is also known as a wlaninux An alternative operating system to Windows Computersg Linux cad connect to theis free to download and you are allowed to give it to friends to use a lot ofare compatible with itMAN Metropolitan Area Network, a network that covers a larger area, forexample a town or city Wireless MANs (men? spread Internet access all over thearea, but are expensive to set up they are sometimes used on universitysMbps Megabits pedt of connectiod notto be confused with MBps megabytes per second There are eight megabits in aorewirelessrouteradvicevisithttp://wirelessrouterdealsorg
PAN Personal Area Network These are networks made up of devices connectede, your computer with a USB keyboard andmouse connected is a PAN PANs can be wireless, using a technology called bluetoothPCI Peripheral component interconf installing nside your computer, such as graphics cards and network devices If you want tostall a wireless card inside your computer you will be using PCIPCMCIA Personal Computer Memory Card International Association(some sayshould stand for 'People Cant Memorize Computer Industry Acronyms) Ard for plugging credit card-sized deyextracapabilitiesCMCia is a great way of adding wireless networking to your laptop as easily asserting a diskversal serial Bus a port used for connecting all sorts of devices to acomputer, including key boards, mice, printers, external drives, and almostse you can think of
If you don 't want to open up your computer andyou don't have a laptop you can get a USB wireless deviceWAN Wide area network a network that is connected over more than onehysical site, such as a business that has its computers in two countriesconnected on one network The Internet, for example is a Wan--the biggestWAN in the worldWEP Wired Equivalent Privacy the old standard for encrypting wirelessks Unfortunately it was found to be insecure back in 2001, and so shouldProtected Access Basically an upgrade ofto fix its securityorewirelessrouteradvicevisithttp://wirelessrouterdealsorg