Free At Last... 

Domestic bliss, it's amazing how fragile the concept is in a house with only one networked computer.

How many times a day are you asked "are you done yet?", or "since you're online look this up for me.", "I need to check my e-mail." Or worse you have a community printer and have to stop cold so your kid can get a hardcopy of his homework."

The wonderful world of hi-speed can be bittersweet when you have just one connection. Spending hours cleaning your system of the leavings your family so generously scattered across your desktop and hard-drive. Clearing caches, running anti-virus products, and uninstalling toolbars, so you can get back some of the performance your "personal" computer used to have before becoming a "kiosk".

Frustration isn't a powerful enough word to describe what you are feeling and surely not what you thought you signed up for when you installed hi-speed.

Possibly you have considered networking your home systems? Thinking about running a cable down the hallway to the kids room, another to the kitchen and while you're at it run one out to the patio! Hey, it's doable!

et's say you have decided to take on the challenge of setting up your network using a physical connection. Before you start you may want to ask yourself a few simple questions. What's CAT5? What's an RJ-45? What's a Pin Out? What's a crimper?

if you know the answers to these questions then you would probably knock out a project like this in a heartbeat. If you don't know the answers, the learning curve can be steep and the mistakes expensive.

Just to drive the point home, let's say you are able to get through the process on your own and have constructed your cables and they actually work. You have worked out all the connectivity issues with your ISP, router/switch, waded through the configurations on all your systems and by George, for the most part, your network actually works.

Good for you! You made it happen! You deserve all the accolades that can be bestowed upon you.

But hold on a minute, before we erect that statue, let's consider a few scenarios. You are walking down the hall; you trip over the CAT5 cable, simultaneously pulling your network setup from its place of honor to the cold hard floor.

You're working out on the patio, suddenly you lose connection and upon investigation you discover the family pooch has decided to use your CAT5 cable as a chew toy. Have kids? I'll let you use your imagination here. You can bet your bottom dollar they are going to find some very creative uses for that CAT5 cable. That is when you're not trying to disentangle it from the vacuum cleaner or repairing it from when it got pinched in the door.

Let's face it, unless you are a skilled cable installer, or at the very least a descent DIYer, that can install CAT5 properly, you are going to end up with an install that is not only ugly but potentially dangerous. My point being, even if you are successful cabling your home network you have just traded one set of difficulties for another.

It all boils down to one thing, that damn cable!

So how do we go about giving the people what they want without the hassle? Simple... Go Wireless!

The benefits of going wireless are incredible. The most obvious being you can set up a pc just about anywhere within your home. Everyone has their own connection so no more hassles fighting for the connection. No unsightly and dangerous cables to get in the way. No more running disks from one system to another just to get a print out. That's only a few of the benefits.

How to choose...

Choosing a technology manufacturer can be a little work. Linksys, Belkin, Netgear, D-Link, Asus, and many others offer 802.11a, 802.11b, and 802.11g wireless routers and network interface cards.

You are going to need to do your homework. Price, functionality, features and ease of use will need to be factored into your final purchasing decision.

Regardless, try to choose technology from one manufacturer. For example, if you choose a Belkin Router then use Belkin NICs. The individual pieces of technology are designed to work together, purchasing your gear from one manufacturer helps reduce the chance of incompatibility.

To keep things simple I'm going to focus on the 802.11g standard. This standard features range, flexibility, is widely available and to the budget conscious person, relatively inexpensive.

My setup of choice is the Linksys WRT54g solution.

From the Linksys website: Wireless-G is the upcoming 54Mbps wireless networking standard that's almost five times as fast as the widely deployed Wireless-B (802.11b) products found in homes, businesses, and public wireless hotspots around the country - but since they share the same 2.4GHz radio band, Wireless-G devices can also interoperate with existing 11Mbps Wireless-B equipment.

Since both standards are built in, you can protect your investment in existing 802.11b infrastructure, and migrate to the new screaming fast Wireless-G standard as your needs grow.

The Linksys Wireless-G Broadband Router is really three devices in one box. First, there's the Wireless Access Point, which lets you connect Wireless-G or Wireless-B devices to the network. There's also a built-in 4-port full-duplex 10/100 Switch to connect your wired-Ethernet devices. Connect four PCs directly, or daisy-chain out to more hubs and switches to create as big a network as you need. Finally, the Router function ties it all together and lets your whole network share a high-speed cable or DSL Internet connection, files, and other resources such as printers and hard disk storage space.

To protect your data and privacy, the Wireless-G Broadband Router can encode all wireless transmissions using 128-bit WEP encryption, and also supports industrial-strength Wi-Fi Protected Access™ (WPA) wireless security. The Router protects your PC from most known Internet attacks with a powerful Stateful Packet Inspection firewall. It can also serve as a DHCP Server, supports VPN pass-through, and can be configured to filter internal users' access to the Internet. And even with all this power, set up is a snap with the web browser-based configuration utility.

With the Linksys Wireless-G Broadband Router at the center of your home or office network, you can share a high-speed Internet connection, files, printers, and multi-player games with the flexibility, speed, and security you need!

Now all you have to do is match the router to a Wireless Network Interface Card and you are good to go. I could bore you with installation and configuring these devices but I'm not going to. A feature that makes Linksys a good choice for the first timer is the guided installation CD that accompanies each product. Simply follow the directions and you can have your wireless network up and running in less than fifteen minutes.

It is in your best interest to become acquainted with and use the security settings on your router. Don't make the mistake of thinking that your mission is complete simply because you have internet connectivity. Suffice it to say, learn your router's security settings and use them.

As an added bonus, due to Linksys' huge user base, the abundance of technical information available is immense. If you need further information for your product you can just Google for it. Exploring how WiFi technology is applied makes for some very interesting study.

Once you have your Wifi Access Point in place, you can finally get on with enjoying your "Personal" computer and some of that domestic bliss mentioned earlier.