On 26 Apr 2006 at 13:02, Loy Pressley wrote:

> I've recently acquired an IBM  Thinkpad notebook  with a Cisco wireless 
> card and I would like to set up a wireless network here at my house.  I 
> know absolutely nothing about how to go about doing this.  I would be 
> very grateful for any guidance that could be offered.  I need to know 
> what kind of hardware I need to make it happen and how to go about 
> hooking it up to get it to work.
> 
> The IBM ThinkPad notebook has Windows 2000 as the operating system, runs 
> at 1.3 GHz and has 512 Megs of RAM, and a 40 gig HD with 37 gig empty.  
> It has the Cisco wireless card and also has two RJ-45 network 
> connections and an internal modem.
> 
> My desktop computer is a Dell L800r with WinXP which runs at 800 MHz, 
> 512 Megs of ram, and a bunch of empty hard disk space.  It also has an 
> internal modem and an empty RJ-45 lan connection.
> 
> Having the capability for the laptop to access my internet connection 
> over the wireless netowork is not a high priority. I live in a rural 
> area and am restricted to a dial-up connection that runs, most of the 
> time at 26,400; occasionally at 28,800 baud.  I'm not sure that DSL or 
> anything like it will ever be available here within my remaining 
> lifetime.  Verizon, our "local" phone company, doesn't seem very 
> motivated to provide anything other than the world's worst phone lines.
> 
> I would be very grateful for any guidance that could be offered.  I need 
> to know what kind of hardware I need to make this happen and how to go 
> about hooking it up to get it to work.

  In theory, you could get a wireless PCI card for the desktop and configure 
it to accept connections from the laptop.  But since the normal operation of 
such cards is to connect the desktop to an existing wireless network, 
support for this configuration is not consistently simple.
  A simpler option will be to purchase a small wireless router; connect your 
desktop's Ethernet port to one of the router's LAN ports, and use your 
laptop's wireless capability to connect to the router's wireless.  The 
router's WAN port can be used later to connect to a high-speed Internet 
service; for now, you can ignore it.

David Gillett

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