Wi-Fi Hotspots

To Mac or Not To Mac? It's not part of my intention here to get into religious wars. People take the question of whether to buy an Apple Macintosh or a Microsoft Windows machine with great fervor. Perhaps they should. This ... [full story]

Trade-Offs A friend of mine quipped a number of years ago that "the computer you really want always costs $5,000." Over time, the cost has come down, and you can certainly buy a high-end laptop for less than $2,000 today. But ... [full story]

Getting to Know Your Future Wi-Fi Laptop Laptops work in pretty much the same way as full-sized desktop computers—they just come in a smaller package. Most everything is compressed into the small familiar form factor that you can carry around with ... [full story]

What's It Going to Cost? It's really dangerous mentioning dollars-and-cents figures in a book for several reasons. The cost of computer-related devices is constantly changing, mostly going down over time as specific technologies become more ... [full story]

The Equipment You'll Need Clearly, the equipment you need depends on how you want to set up your network. If you are planning to add Wi-Fi to a wired network, in addition to all the equipment you need for the wired network, ... [full story]

Different Ways to Use Wi-Fi in a Network In the last section, I just discussed some of the implications of "stringing together" computers to make something more powerful than any individual computer on the network. ... [full story]

Understanding Home and SOHO Networks If you are used to working on a single computer, the idea of setting up a network may seem daunting. Perhaps at work you do plug into the corporate network, but maintaining and configuring this network ... [full story]

Surfing While You Sip With a working Wi-Fi card in your computer, the next thing to do is to tune your card to the Wi-Fi frequency being broadcast at the hotspot you've decided to visit. This is essentially like tuning a ... [full story]

Paying for Your Fun For the most part, as the saying goes, there is no such thing as a free lunch, or a free latte. This is all too true, I'm afraid: Mostly you will need to pay to surf while ... [full story]

The Equipment You Need The answer to the question, "What equipment do you need to hit the road and connect?" is: not much. Obviously, you need a mobile computing device such as a laptop, or possibly a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA). Most ... [full story]

The Future of Wi-Fi Wi-Fi is a disruptive technology that came unexpectedly and has been growing by leaps and bounds, mainly because it is inexpensive and fills a need. Originally, Wi-Fi was just a hack so that people could connect a ... [full story]

Transmission Speeds Figure 2.2 shows some comparative throughput speeds for most of the wireless standards I've discussed in this chapter. Figure 2.2. Comparative speeds of wireless standards. [View full size image] In order to keep the comparison real-world, I've included estimated actual throughput ... [full story]

Related Wireless Standards You might also hear about some other wireless standards, and wonder how they are related to Wi-Fi. The two other wireless standards you are most likely to hear about are Bluetooth and 3G. Bluetooth is a short-range connectivity solution ... [full story]

The 802.11 Standard and Its Variations Generally, the core 802.11 standard is intended to specify a way for computers to network using the 2.4GHz and 5GHz free spectrums I just explained. (When computers network, it is said that they are forming ... [full story]

Using Wi-Fi on the Road I'll be giving an overview of connecting on the road in Chapter 3. Part III includes a lot of detailed information, as well as tips, tricks, techniques, and information about the latest hot mobile gadgets. For ... [full story]

Understanding Wi-Fi Networks You're on the road and you've found a location with a Wi-Fi broadcast device that your mobile computer can talk to. A Wi-Fi broadcast device is variously referred to as an access point, an AP, or a hotspot. With ... [full story]

Why Wi-Fi Is Important The 802.11 standard is important because millions of people all over the world are using this standard. They use it to connect without wires to the Internet when they are on the road and away from their ... [full story]

What Is Wi-Fi? The very short version is that Wi-Fi is a way for wireless devices to communicate. Wi-Fi, short for wireless fidelity, is the Wi-Fi Alliance's name for a wireless standard, or protocol, used for wireless communication. I'll tell you a ... [full story]

RF Interference and Attenuation One of the biggest challenges when working with wireless networks is the RF interference and attenuation. It takes practice to develop the skills necessary to predict the coverage and performance of wireless networks to aid in a ... [full story]

RF Propagation You should be familiar with two different antenna types: Omnidirectional antennas Directional antennas Omnidirectional antennas propagate the Wi-Fi signals the same in all directions. Most manufacturers provide this antenna type on their APs, wireless routers, and client devices. Omnidirectional antennas do well ... [full story]

Wi-Fi System Operation All 802.11 technologies operate in the same manner. The operational functions, such as connecting, scanning, and roaming between APs, are controlled by the MAC layer, which is specified in the 802.11 standard. This section covers how the main ... [full story]

Comparing 802.11 Standards As mentioned in Chapter 1, "The Basics of Wi-Fi Hotspots," Wi-Fi networks use a technology that is specified within a standard called 802.11. The standard is basically written documents formed by members of the IEEE. These documents help ... [full story]

Sharing Printers One of the ways to share printers on a network is to connect a printer directly to a computer within the network and set it up to be shared in Windows. This is the method discussed in the following ... [full story]

Sharing Files One of the benefits of using wireless or wired networks is the ability to share files among the network users. Enabling sharing on hotspots and other networks that are not secured by encryption is not suggested. However, on private ... [full story]

Editing Your Preferred Network List The preferred network list is a prioritized list of networks you would like to connect to. You can add networks to the list, which saves time, especially when you are using encrypted wireless networks. Your wireless ... [full story]

Checking the Connection Status You can easily check the connection status of your wireless adapter. This status information can help when you are troubleshooting connection problems. Using the System Tray To quickly see the status of your connection, follow these steps: Step 1. Hover over ... [full story]

Connecting to a Wi-Fi Network Using the Windows XP Configuration Utility One of the first things you should know is how to connect to wireless networks because you must do so before you can access the Internet via your network. To ... [full story]

Toggling Between Windows XP and the Manufacturer Utility If you have not noticed yet, Windows XP has a built-in wireless configuration utility. In addition, most wireless adapters have a custom wireless configuration utility that you can use. Usually you can pick ... [full story]

Enabling and Disabling Your Network Adapter You should disconnect or disable your network adapter when you are not using your network. For security reasons, this is especially true when you are using unsecured wireless networks such as hotspots. Doing so also ... [full story]

Adding Access Points Expanding your Wi-Fi hotspot by adding APs mainly involves finding the right places to set up the APs within your facility and figuring out how to wire them back to the network. APs are similar to wireless routers and ... [full story]

Higher-Gain Antenna Although you will not see a huge increase in the wireless coverage area when you replace your wireless router or hotspot gateway "rubber duck" antenna with a higher-gain one, it is a good way to maximize the coverage area ... [full story]

Internet Connection Unavailable The hotspot user might be able to connect to the hotspot but might not be able to get to the Internet. What the User Should Do Users can do several things to help remedy their connection problem: Check the IP address ... [full story]