Wireless Wonders

For the Monday holiday, one of the few breaks hubby-Eric will get this year, the two of us did our taxes. To my surprise, we are getting a substantial chunk o' money back, and we immediately decided to spend a bit of it. If hubby-Eric wants to brag about his purchases, well, he's got his own blog. But since this is my blog, I'm going to tell you all what I got.

I'm going wireless. Not completely wireless, sadly, but enough to hopefully hang out in the living room with the laptop, watching TV with hubby, and yet still access the 'net. I wanted to go wireless eventually, but figured it could wait. But then I was reminded that I'm house-sitting at the Pug House Of Horrors later this spring, thankfully without the pugs, and in order to access the net with the network they have set up, I would probably need a wireless connection. So I figured I ought to look into the various types of wireless and figure out what Eric's Parents have at their house, and what I would need to connect.

A couple of frustrating hours later, I got it mostly sorted out to my satisfaction. Basically there are two types of home-network wireless, and they are mostly compatible with one another. To make sure I could access the Pug House's network, I just needed to get a decent card. And to get a wireless router for my own house, it would cost as low as $25 (if the rebate goes through). So I made those purchases, via Amazon, late Monday night.

So now I'm just waiting for a UPS truck to come by with my new router and wireless card, then the real fun begins. I'll let you know as I start work on it how it all goes.

By sheer synchronicity, my little sister came by later that night and nearly the first words out of her mouth were, "what do you know about wireless networks"? She wants to set my mom up on a DSL line with a wireless router, so that sister can come home and work on-line from where-ever, and mom will have a much faster internet connection. We went out the next morning and bought a router, wireless card for sister's laptop, and an ethernet card for mom's computer which I need to go down and install for her. Since I'd just spent several hours researching, I was able to give what I hope will be good advice. Again, we'll have to see.