I'm a wireless virgin!

benjus

BusyGirl wrote: »

Any opinions on this package for my needs?

http://www.pcworld.co.uk/martprd/store/pcw_page.jsp?BV_SessionID=@@@@1290852710.1213640959@@@@&BV_EngineID=ccckadeegdjgfdjcflgceggdhhmdfhk.0&page=Accessory&sku=972885

It's a high speed Wireless connection. However, for what you are looking for you won't notice the difference.

It has an extra long range, which might be useful if you have a large house or want to take the laptop outside.

It comes with a USB WiFi dongle included, although you won't need it if you want to use a cable to connect the PC.

The price is good (provided you use [EMAIL="Collect@Store"]Collect@Store[/EMAIL]), although it's £15 more than the ordinary Netgear router.

Edinburghlass_2

Thats the one I had linked to and yes its okay but if you are going to site the router beside the pc and the telephone sockets then you don't need the dongle

Edinburghlass_2

Cross posted there but benjus explained it in more detail.

Out of interest benjus any opinions on the cheapie router at ebuyer? I had terrible problems with a netgear for a friend, bought via Amazon, and just can't get it to work and its now gone back and I wondered about giving the cheap one a try?

BusyGirl

Ok so I buy my equipment and laptop etc
I currently have AOL 9.0 broadband installed on my pc. I have the original disc, filter etc that were sent to me so do I just install AOL the same way onto the laptop so that I can access it from both machines? Sorry but this is all new to me as I'm so used to working on one computer!:o

BusyGirl

So buy the router etc, set it up on main pc, then switch on the laptop and then......?I'm confused, how do I access AOL on the laptop if there isn't any software installed on it?

tom9980

BusyGirl wrote: »

So buy the router etc, set it up on main pc, then switch on the laptop and then......?I'm confused, how do I access AOL on the laptop if there isn't any software installed on it?

It depends on the router you get but basically.

• Set up the new router with AOL details.
• Set up wireless on the new router giving it a name (SSID) turning on security (WPA) and setting a passkey.
• Turn on laptop.
• Either click on the wireless connection icon in tasktray or using control panel setup a wireless network connection.
• Follow the wizard enter the network name and passkey and your good to go.

Of course its not quite that simple sometimes, be wary of signal strength too sometimes it just doesnt go far enough through walls to be effective or fast enough. To give an example on range my neighbours Netgear DG834g goes about 5 meters through 2 standard brick walls and not much further.

BusyGirl

Thanks for that, starting to become clearer now. I will buy the goods and let you know how I get on.

Edinburghlass_2

If you have a Tesco Extra near you have a look in there as I just got a ADSL Zoom X6 Model 5590 (for those experts who want to Google it) wireless router for £40 and they sell a dongle separately by Zoom for £16.99.

I looked at their laptops and they had a nice Dell with £15 off at £384 but I don't know which model or the spec.

edited to add a link from Amazon of the router

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000IM544W/interactiveda3037-21

link to the Dell from Tesco

http://direct.tesco.com/q/R.203-9328.aspx

and a thread here about an HP I also saw, although from a purely girly point of view I preferred the Dell

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=944391

BusyGirl

Well I'm wireless now, but what a palava! I bought the Netgear router and had major problems setting it up as apparantly AOL is such a pain to fiddle with. In the end I called a tech guy from the local paper and after two and a half hours he did it.
So I'm tied into AOL for another year but we're using Internet Explorer instead of their stuff as it seems to be so much easier. I also splashed out on my first laptop, a Compaq machine for around £400, so a little over budget but very impressive. The trouble is I'll never be off the thing now!
Thanks for all of your help and advice, much appreciated.

Edinburghlass_2

oh to heck with IE, you need to download Firefox