Gone Wireless

Hardware and technical stuff
1

I was at Best Buy the othjer day, minding my own business, when I saw a cute Toshiba laptop, 2.0 Gz Celeron, 15" display, XP, 30Gig HD, DVD w/CD-RW, trackpad and nice speakers. It was selling for $1100, but had a mail-in rebate that lowered it down to $700. A pretty good deal, I think, since I’d been surfing eBay and finding older used computers for roughly the same price and with no warranty. So I say I’ll take it.

They are out of stock, they can’t find it, I get testy, the manager discovers it’s discontinued so they can sell me the floor model, blah-blah-blah. By the time I’m done I get the machine for $550, and feel very happy with the deal. But wait, now’s when the fun starts!

I’e never had a personal laptop in the wireless age, and really like the idea. I mostly just use desktop machines. So I buy the Linksys wireless card and wireless router. Learning from Tom’s issues I just swap out the cables from the old (Linksys regular) router to the new (Linksys wireless)one. It takes a couple restarts, but the network recognizes, and all seems well. The portable picks the network up right off, but warns me the network is unprotected. I get to the router and put a password on it. Next I go to the “trusted computer”-type screen on the router settings, find my laptop, add it, then activate the protection. The other computers are hard-wired in, so I’m hoping that was enough, and the the router can tell the difference between a cable connection and a wireless one.

Now here’s myy question: What else should I be doing? I don’t want to get hacked into (there are several other wireless networks nearby, apparently), and don’t want to worry about adding a firewall to the laptop. Can the Linsys router protect the laptop, or should I firewall it? Lloyd, are you out there?

2

Once you’ve enabled WEP and given it a key, that’s about all you can do. If you’re really worried, change the WEB key periodically, and use 128-bit at a minimum.

Note that a stronger form of encryption security, WPA, may be available for the Linksys. If that’s so, you’ll need to download new firmware for both the router and the PC card.

3

Obligatory surf the net while on the can suggestion.

4

[quote=“Case”]

Once you’ve enabled WEP and given it a key, that’s about all you can do. If you’re really worried, change the WEB key periodically, and use 128-bit at a minimum.

Note that a stronger form of encryption security, WPA, may be available for the Linksys. If that’s so, you’ll need to download new firmware for both the router and the PC card.[/quote]
Thanks. I’ll check that tonight. I’m having a lot of fun tapping away on my networked laptop while downstairs in front of the TV, but just want to make sure I’m not setting myself up to get hosed.

5

You can also find places that have free Wi Fi and surf the net there. There’s a chain of coffehouse places in St. Louis with free WiFi. If you have any Panera Bread Company places, that’s the chain (though they’re called St. Louis Bread Company here).

6

Just make sure you have mirrored glass facing inward in your windows. It prevents radio waves from escaping from the house.