Suggestions from the Trenches?

[pop pop]

Our son moved back in. He has his own computer and of course wants net access. I have Comcast Broadband for my system. I guess a good solution is a wireless home network. We'll want internet, file, and printer sharing. Bottom line question is what's the best and at the same time the easiest to set up. Here's some details:

Mine: Gateway Lexington P4 2.26Gig, 512RAM, 80+ HDD@7200 etc using cable modem w/standard ethernet connection, Lexmark 6170 All-in-one printer on USB, W2K SP4 all updates; NAV, ZA 4.5, SPYBOT, SPYWARE BLASTER, TH, AdAware; using IE 6 and Firefox 0.9.01, alternating as needed. All apps updated.

His: P2 something, 128RAM, HDD unknown ATT, XP Home ... no NIC that I can see.

I was thinking: Lynxsys 11.g wireless BB router and the wireless PC cards. Abit more expensive than the alternatives but ...

What think yee? Help appreciated.

[PrntRhd]

Linksys wireless is a good choice, regular 801.g should be fast enough. Read posts here regards security and the material included with the wireless access point to be certain you are not exposing your LAN to outside access.

Some here also like D-Link products, same advice re security with that too.

[classicsoftware]

You need a Linksys wireliess router and a wireless nic card for your son's computer. Your computer will be hard wired. The linksys will allow 4 hard wired ports.

One last observation. Wired is faster and more secure and less expensive. It might be cheaper to get non-wirless router and a non wireless NIC card and see how much it would coist to run the cable or have the cable run. If it's close, I'd go with the wired for the reasons I stated speed,cost and security. If you have an old house or rent and can't afford or are allowed to run the wire, then go wireless. It's not like your son has a notebook and want's to surf anywhere. With a desktop he's stuck in one location anyway.

[pop pop]

The house is big ... and old. Running a CAT-5 cable from upstairs where my home office is to his room downstairs might be 20 feet if done direct as possible. That would also mean going through the floor/ceiling. Not impossible, in fact I could do it all myself. I'll have to weigh all the factors. I've only looked at wireless costs so far. The cost of the equipment is $99 for the wireless G router and about $70 for the wireless PC card. Speed ... mine would be wired so I would get full speed, his would not be wired and if memory serves I think the box said something like 54meg for the wireless (does that make sense?). Security would be an issue with signal going everywhere but I read somewhere about wireless encryption keys. ANd then there's our cordless phone at what, 2.4 gig ... same as the net and suseptible to interference there.

Simplicity of the net setup, in terms of the software, is another issue. A major one. I have a lot of computer experience but I am network challenged. Wired or not, I want easy seemless installation with internet and printer sharing.

Thanks for the info.