Cable Modem network setups

[jkajfes]

I've had a Shaw@home cable connection for almost a couple of years now. I found it adequate for my Internet needs until I decided I would like to expand it to handle a notebook computer.

I've posted this info to a few individuals who haven't answered them as yet so I thought I'd try and start here to get some of the answers I might need. I want to get moving on this as quickly as possible.

I understand a fair bit about computers. I know NOTHING about the innards of networking them properly. Most of the sales people and heavily tech network types of whom I've asked questions have only served to confuse me more.

I have a desktop computer running Windows 2000. It presently has 2 PCI NICs in it on seperate IRQ's. One is connected to an RJ45 jack to a TeraPro cable modem. The other PCI NIC is connected through the RJ45 jack to a Dell APR (advanced port replicator) docking station with has a NIC built into it on a RJ45 jcak. The Dell is running Windows 98SE.

I call this my hardwired setup. From either the desktop or the notebook I can access the Internet and I can transfer files back and forth.

I have ONE IP address I’m assuming is dynamic through shaw@home so I guess it changes, right? How often I’m not sure because I haven’t paid attention to it.

The networking appears to be handled by ICS (internet connection sharing) in win2k and win98SE. I’m assuming that the notebook somehow gets into the net through that one dynamic IP address. Correct?

Now pay attention because this is where I get tons of different answers that are as different as serial numbers on currency!

I want to maintain this hardwired application and I want to ADD wireless flexibility to the notebook. It stands to reason that if it’s a nice day I want to get into the back yard with the notebook to work, under a shaded umbrella and I don’t want to be running hardwired connection to the outside of the house, or to the den, or to the basement etc…

I’m totally open for suggestion on the best way to do this with the least amount of hardware involved.

I’ve experiment with a Wireless PCMCIA NIC labeled by Dell and it’s counterpart a wireless PCI NIC… I think they got it from Aironet because that’s the logo on the back of the NIC’s…

I put the wireless PCI NIC into the desktop and the wireless PCMCIA NIC into the undocked Dell. The Dell recognized it immediately and configured it and you could see it under device manager. The desktop system saw the wireless PCI NIC and configured it under ntk2 on IRQ 9 with was being shared by another PCI NIC on IRQ 9. I couldn’t get them separated. To compound the problem after messing with this for 2 nights. There are NO proper win2k drivers. Dell has got them and Aironet’s can be used because some tweaking went on… The Cdrom had this great mpeg video showing a win2000 directory on the cd but after calling Dell it really doesn’t exist.

So I sent the cards back…

During the experimentation that went on I got familiar with some aspects of networking but not enough to find a proper solution to what I want to do…

For example could a desktop technically have 3 PCI NICS in it and function properly?

I know you folks will offer suggestions about adding routers, hubs and a pile of stuff. If you do I need to know how you’re piecing it together. I also know there’s probably a dozens ways of handling this. I only need one that works!… kidding of course.

Here’s the direction I think I’d like to go… just remember I don’t know what I’m talking about… but these are my thoughts…

We’ve got a cable modem connected to the Internet. From that I think you have to introduce one of two things a router or a hub… PCI NICs into the desktop and connections to the notebook when it’s docked and when it’s undocked a wireless solution.

Dell does have access to a business solution involving what they call the “Enterprise” which is suppose to be better than their 4800LT series. I’m considering this for the wireless aspect. Apparently it is more hardware oriented and doesn’t rely on heavily bloated software like or similar to Sygen.

This has all gotten really complicated, really fast… at least for me.

I figure if I can tie the cable modem into a router with ports i.e. a Linksys Etherfast Cable/DSL router, or possibly the UMAX Ugate300 I can get away with not having a hub involved. The router would help with a hardware solution to security…

But the Linksys unit doesn’t appear to be able to cope with dynamic IPs whereas the Ugate 3000 might… I’d like to consider the Linksys because the reviews have been good, it’s relatively cheap. I just don’t know if the dynamic handling of IP’s is a software problem or if it also involves the hardware.

The there’s all that LAN stuff… access to the net, an internal LAN and a wireless LAN… I’m only connecting a single notebook so why not just use a crossover cable… I don’t want to be too short-side on this because I eventually will connect one more desktop.

Can anyone offer some suggestions. I’ve spent a fair bit of time lurking on Tom Higgins site and reading as much as I can… but because there’s so many directions one can take I’m confused where to really start…

Thanks
John kajfes

[Fade]

John,
Could you ask more questions in one post? Hehe, just kidding.

I can speak pretty well for what you have and what you need. I'm familiar with most all the items you have, or tried, including the Aironet equipment (now sold by Cisco).

First, lets talk about your step up from "Windows 2000 Internet Sharing" to a full blown home network. Many of the users on this site do this. What will most likely be required for you to do is NAT (Network Address Translation) on either a PC, or networking device. The reason why is that your provider most likely gives you one dynamic address. Windows internet sharing will do this. Other ways to accomplish this task (that also help you expand into home networking) would be a software router like Winroute, or a hardware router like the Linksys model you mentioned. Both will handle obtaining the dynamic address just fine. Both will also perform NAT so that multiple PC's behind them can use the single actual internet address you are given by your provider.

In your case, the Linksys would be the best way to go. It's fairly inexpensive and includes a 4 port switch to add PC's from your home network. In the future, you could add another hub or switch and connect it to one of these original ports. As another example, I use a software firewall (a PC with 2 NIC cards running Winroute). I then run the inside NIC to a switch which I have the rest of my home network connected to. Doing it this way costs more, and the PC running the software router must always be up or the rest of your network will get no conectivity to the internet. In either case you will use private addresses inside your home network, and the single dynamic public address on the outside.

Now on to your wireless question. You had the BEST product in your hands with Aironet. The problem is you were doing a "card to card" wireless solution. Not the best way to go, and not good for range. If you wanted to use Aironet, try this approach. Purchase an access point (AP). Connect this to one of the ports on your Linksys router (assuming you get one). Then put an Aironet PCMCIA NIC card into your laptop. It will automatically register with the AP and connect to your network. Unless you have steel walls throughout your house, it will even work well quite some distance into your yard. Assuming that you buy the 11mb product line, the only thing you will need to worry about might be your microwave. It operates in the same 2.4ghz range and many users have experienced interruption while operating near this type of equipment (within 15 feet or so). Many other vendors are introducing home wireless LAN solutions, but at extremely low speeds or range. Remember, in wireless products, you get what you pay for.

Other questions you had:
Can a PC use 3 NIC's?
Yes, as long as there are no IRQ problems. Each will need to be on a DIFFERENT subnet or the windows route table will not funtion correctly.

Is the UMAX Ugate 3000 a good product?
I have no idea. Not familiar with this product. Anything similar to the Linksys model should work fine though.

Crossover cable or normal cable?
Remember this rule ... PC to device = normal cable, PC to PC = Crossover cable, Device to device = Crossover cable. Devices are usually hubs or switches. To summarize the rule, like devices use crossover, unlike devices use straight through or normal cable.

Private addressing and public addressing?
Private addresses are non-Internet routable addresses. They were designed to reduce the load of new addresses needed on the internet, and to protect private LAN's. Your home lan should use one of the following ranges:
10.X.X.X (mask 255.X.X.X)

172.16.X.X - 172.31.X.X (mask 255.255.X.X)

192.168.X.X (Mask 255.255.X.X)

Some of this information may help you, and some may be confusing. See if this answers your questions. If not, I'd be happy to answer more stuff offline at my email address below. Fear not though, many others have successfully set up home LAN's and are happy surfers. You should be fine.

Let me know if I can help you more,
Fade

skpruett@yahoo.com

[jkajfes]

John,
Could you ask more questions in one post? Hehe, just kidding.

Hi Fade First, thank you for replying to the subject. I know what you mean. I type fast but should slow down because of the typos and grammar… I’m going to reply to your reply within your reply. Did that make sense? If it gets ugly as we move along i.e. too hard to read through. I’ll attack it from a different approach. Sometimes it’s just too hard to read through when you do this.
I can speak pretty well for what you have and what you need. I'm familiar with most all the items you have, or tried, including the Aironet equipment (now sold by Cisco).
Absolutely correct, I found that out while attempting to use the wk2 drivers on the Aironet website. They won’t work because Dell’s had them tweaked for their purposes. So I dropped the 4800LT by Dell to look for another wireless alternative. I know Dell is using the core code of Aironet’s drivers but they’ve altered some of that code because of the agreement they had with Aironet on the project and with my limited experience it was easier to back off.
First, lets talk about your step up from "Windows 2000 Internet Sharing" to a full blown home network. Many of the users on this site do this. What will most likely be required for you to do is NAT (Network Address Translation) on either a PC, or networking device. The reason why is that your provider most likely gives you one dynamic address. Windows internet sharing will do this. Other ways to accomplish this task (that also help you expand into home networking) would be a software router like Winroute, or a hardware router like the Linksys model you mentioned. Both will handle obtaining the dynamic address just fine. Both will also perform NAT so that multiple PC's behind them can use the single actual internet address you are given by your provider.
Let me get this straight. You’re saying that the Linksys BEFSR41 will deal properly with dynamic addressing from a cable modem provider? On Tom’s site on the con’s of the device he’s indicating kinda no. My understanding is that it’s fine for static IP’s but a little weak with dynamic. Maybe it wasn’t Tom’s site it might have been on Speedguide’s site because Vorpal and & Brent did an assessment of the device. And maybe I’ve read or understood it all wrong… I would like it to be a problem that could be addressed by a software solution because the Linksys device looks promising and a very good bang for the buck! It’s also a hardware device which might help with the security aspects and AND it’s got a switched hub internally if that count’s for something which you mention below. I also like the Ugate 3000 but it’s more money and I want to be sensitive to that but I also don’t want to be short sighted either. I’m hoping the Linksys will do the job… just indicated an alternate should it blow up…

In your case, the Linksys would be the best way to go. It's fairly inexpensive and includes a 4 port switch to add PC's from your home network. In the future, you could add another hub or switch and connect it to one of these original ports. As another example, I use a software firewall (a PC with 2 NIC cards running Winroute). I then run the inside NIC to a switch which I have the rest of my home network connected to. Doing it this way costs more, and the PC running the software router must always be up or the rest of your network will get no conectivity to the internet. In either case you will use private addresses inside your home network, and the single dynamic public address on the outside.
Okay I sort of followed what you’ve said. My desktop system running wk2 (i.e. the supposed stability and flexibility of the o/s) is on a Fortress UPS that would a small town for a week… never turn it off. It’s the second hub that’s potentially involved and something I can’t get my head around. I see these hubs in a peculiar way. Hub’s a switch and many of them have 4 or more connections. Seems you need one every time you want to branch something. Yet I’m think it’s some kind of waste. Why not combine a router with a hub and plug everything into that individually. It’s the nesting aspect… If you plug everything into the router/hub that’s connected to the net you’ve got a traffic problem with your and I’ll say it loosely “intranet” the file/and printer sharing aspect. i.e a single NIC in the systems will result in this mess. If you don’t subnet this stuff it’s going to be routed through the internet and back to your system, right? Cable operators, not to mention folks using them don’t need that happening and then there’s the security issues.
Moving on… Why the software firewall? Is that because you’re not using something like the Linksys a hardware router which could handle that aspect by itself and it also includes a switching hub aspect? Maybe I got Linksys on the brain or something.
Let me digress a little… There’s another device out there called a D-Link DI-701. A hardware device, which connects to a cable modem, handles dynamic stuff (DHCP ability?). It has a single connection for one computer and a connection for a cable modem. You familiar with that? Maybe using that and then a simple hub just might be better than the Linksys device? Either way I think the cost would parallel but I haven’t actually done that analysis. Just exploring another route to go on the hardwired aspect. I want to get that nailed down before factoring in the wireless equation. What I should do is draw physical squares on a piece of paper, label the devices and wire it up with string representing UTP cable… haha don’t laugh! Lot cheaper than buying the actual hardware and then trying to wire it up!

Now on to your wireless question. You had the BEST product in your hands with Aironet. The problem is you were doing a "card to card" wireless solution. Not the best way to go, and not good for range. If you wanted to use Aironet, try this approach. Purchase an access point (AP). Connect this to one of the ports on your Linksys router (assuming you get one). Then put an Aironet PCMCIA NIC card into your laptop. It will automatically register with the AP and connect to your network. Unless you have steel walls throughout your house, it will even work well quite some distance into your yard. Assuming that you buy the 11mb product line, the only thing you will need to worry about might be your microwave. It operates in the same 2.4ghz range and many users have experienced interruption while operating near this type of equipment (within 15 feet or so). Many other vendors are introducing home wireless LAN solutions, but at extremely low speeds or range. Remember, in wireless products, you get what you pay for.
AHAHHH!… right, exactly card-to-card because that’s all I understood or could comprehend! One wireless PCI NIC here i.e. the desktop and one wireless PCMCIA NIC in the Dell. It’s gotta work my brain’s telling me… not necessarily the case at all. I see what you’re getting at, really! Ditch the wireless PCI NIC for the access point device. I discussed all this with Doug Wallingford at Dell. He’s in network development for Dell and they put me on to him aiming for a solution for a cranky customer. Trouble is you need a “cosmic clearance” to touch these guys. Doug was the one who told me about the D-Link DI 701 as possibly coming into the equation. I never fully understood what he was saying about a “hardware solution” to the wireless. An AP (access point) must have been what he was talking about. I did see that on Aironet’s site… totally missed the point of it… ditch the PCI NIC and replace it with that and into the Linksys… interesting.
Digressing here... When I ordered the Dell 7500 I talked to them at great length about what I wanted to do emphasizing the wireless connectivity I wanted for the freedom aspect. You can order the Dell with the 4800LT wireless PCMCIA NIC’s because they’re SKU’d that way. But they don’t deal with the “other end” aspects very well. In all fairness it’s partially do to the complexity of options. I kept asking them, “Ya but what’s on the other end. What’s it connect to?” All I got back was, “It’s a standard wireless protocol you can connect it to anything.” To which I replied you’re kidding me because I previously messed with a lot of wireless stuff and it wasn’t so standard. I wanted a total solution from Dell i.e. if you give me the wireless 4800LT NIC I want something on the other end that it’s talking to that’s totally compatible and has been tested by Dell… I wasn’t going to run around the retail outlets looking for something… so I went off half cocked and ordered the wireless PCI version of the 4800LT and tried to deal with it. Then I ran into a driver problem with wk2. By themselves, stand alone they’ll work but they use this Sygen software with it’s bloated code and that stuff won’t network well under MS’s o/s’s… that’s my experience with it in my setting. Might be different for someone else though.
Doug mentioned that Dell was about to offer the Enterprise series of wireless NIC’s and I know that’s based on Aironet’s 340 series with the AP’s… be looking into this on Monday with a fresh perspective… also technically or apparently it’s a more hardware approach with using the AP… seems to configure itself quickly without software intervention… I do remember Doug talking about this point…
Made little notes on the general info you answered… thanks.
Some of this information may help you, and some may be confusing. See if this answers your questions. If not, I'd be happy to answer more stuff offline at my email address below. Fear not though, many others have successfully set up home LAN's and are happy surfers. You should be fine.
You’ve been helpful… If we can continue just a bit more… I’ll bleed ya dry for info! J
I thought I’d continue it in the conference. Other might want to see what develops. Then again they might not. I suffer from verbal whatever…
Regards
John

[Fade]

Hey again John,
I'll devide this reply up into two parts. Your home LAN equipment questions, and your wireless questions. Please excuse any of this information that may be too far above or below your tech level. It's hard to judge the best way to reply to someone on only a few board posts. I'll try to keep it middle of the road so to speak.

LAN questions:
To directly answer your question, yes, the Linksys BEFSR41 Cable/DSL Router will work fine with dynamic IP addresses FROM your ISP. During setup, you simply set the WAN address to the "Obtain IP address automatically" setting. As you stated, it does have 4 switch ports, a WAN port, and even an uplink port (already "crossed over" to connect to another hub or switch). I do not have one of these units. However, there are many posts on this board covering it's operation so I think you could get a good idea of everyone's overall opinion with enough reading here. The D-link DI-701 product you mentioned will also work in the same way, only it will need to connect to a hub or switch if you want to connect multiple devices. The UMAX Ugate-3000 will work too. It comes with a four port hub versus the four port switch on the Linksys unit. (more on hub vs. switch below)

You lost me a little bit on your hub and routing question. Let me see if I can explain it some. PC's on a network need to be on the same subnet (IP address range plus mask) in order to talk to one another. If they aren't on the same subnet, then they need to be shown the way to their destination via a 'gateway' (usually a router). In your case, all of your home PC devices should be on the same subnet. Something like 192.168.1.1 - 192.168.1.254 (with a mask of 255.255.255.0). If each has an IP address and mask in that range, they will "see" each other and you can do file sharing and whatever. Usually one of the devices on that network (like 192.168.1.1) is a router. You tell each PC to use that number as the "gateway", thus giving them the direction to go ... when they can't find information locally. The router actually has another network connection, and will forward your requests out that connection to another gateway/router and so on. Try not to confuse hubs and switches with subnets. Equipment is simply a means to an end. More hubs and switches connected together does not force you to have more local subnets. All they really do is extend the wire that your entire network is connected to.

One note though. Hubs are a shared access device. It's like a telephone party line. If you pick up the phone and your neighbor is talking, you have to wait until he's done to use the phone. In addition, if a single network card has a problem, the entire network will slow to a crawl since no other device will be able to access the network. Switches are like normal telephones. As long as the two end devices aren't busy, multiple conversations can occur at once. So one PC can be downloading from the internet, while two other PC's are sharing local files. Neither conversation will reduce the bandwith available to the other. In addition, if a single network card has a problem, a switch will isolate the faulty port, thus allowing the other ports to continue to work. This is a long, drawn out explanation to try to recommend the Linksys (with it's 4 port switch) to the Umax (with it's 4 port hub).

Here's an example of what your equipment might be once you get connected. Your cable comes into your cable modem. This, in turn connects to a Linksys or Umax router/firewall. From there, up to 4 PC's are connected to the Router. In addition, later on as your needs grow you could run one of these ports to a hub/switch to expand your free ports, allowing more PC's to be connected. I hope this helps some. Wish I could draw a picture on this forum.

Wireless questions:
First, Dell is a great company. The fact that they can even answer any networking questions sets them apart from a whole mass of PC vendors who don't have a clue. I respect their support, and I'm sure they will give you great advice.

The Aironet products are widely used for many applications. The access point (AP) is nothing more than a "range extender" for the internal PC cards or laptop PCMCIA cards. The AP plugs into the network hub or switch, and then allows other wireless devices to connect to the network through it. If you go to your local Home Depot and glance up at the front and back walls, chances are you will see many small off-white boxes with little black antenna's on them. The reason is that Home Depot is a big customer of Aironet and they cover the large range of the store with a few AP's. They then use a few handheld wireless network devices (inventory scanners) to access their network servers in the back of the store. You could esentially connect your entire household full of PC's with one AP, and appropriate Aironet NIC cards for each PC. Supposedly, Aironet AP's will allow any wireless NIC using the 802.11b standard to connect to them. I would try to stick to one brand for every device though since the theory doesn't always hold true. Aironet's 340 series is the newest and best way to go. It replaced the original Aironet 4800 series when Cisco purchased the product. It's top speed is 11mb and it steps down from there automatically depending on signal strength and distance from the AP.

Since Cisco purchased Aironet, things have slowly been progressing back to full production. I would expect full (and supported) Windows 2000 drivers very soon.

That's about it for your questions I think. Again, feel free to ask more if needed. I don't mind, this is basically what I do for a living anyway. It gives me a good feeling to help others get their network (large or small) up and running. Good luck in your equipment purchase.

-Fade

[John]

This has been moved to the Networking Forum

[jkajfes]

sorry 'bout that John... I should have thought about the overall topic and posted it in the proper area. Will try to be more selctive in the future and please accept my apology...
regards


Originally posted by John:
This has been moved to the Networking Forum

[jkajfes]

Whoa, I sure made a mess of my last post by trying to combine my replies between yours… I hauled your post into Word and then started writing between your comment and answers… sorry ‘bout that…

I decided what the heck. I could do worse than roar out and buy a Linksys BEFSR41 so I went on a mission to get one. Up here it’s a little hard to find them… finally Futures shop had 1 under a glass case. I paid a whopping 379.49 hiyeee! Retails at 329.99 then taxes, there’s always taxes!

Just finished hooking it up. I made a 10” straight-through cable to go from it to the shaw@home cable modem. Found a reference to that from one of the links. I had the tool and connectors and a spool of UTP cable just lying around. I buy these types of things on binges and squirrel it away. You never know when you’re going to need it. When I get the urge to do a project I get impatient fast…

I got it up and running very quickly. I don’t load any software from the disk that came with it. After all the stuff I have previous read about it being so hardware oriented I thought we don’t need no stinkin’ software. Just dealt with it through the browser interface and I didn’t do anything there but have a look-see. It was set to the defaults and to accept dynamic IP… thing does just that! Just like you said it would! I was a little worried because I didn’t know if I would have to do any on the Desktop computer running wk2 or even the Dell running win98Se… Didn’t touch a thing on either. Just rebooted the systems are the hardware connections were done and everything was working from a hardwire point of view. Both system can access the net and I can file share and technically I think I’m only using TCP/IP no NetBEUI stuff as yet… or I sure don’t see that protocol anywhere. I can see why it’s generating a lot of interest with folks. Man was it easy to setup and configure at the outset… yet it sure looks like you can tweak a fair bit of stuff once your up to speed on networking… which I’m not at this point. Just took a first step.

I scrapped the DI-701 idea for my setup. I think the BEFSR41 has all of the aspects of it and then some. I lucked out on the switching aspect of the hub inside it too!

I understood a fair bit of your post using the phone party line as an example helped a lot. I see your point about the switching aspect of the Linksys. Thanks for that explanation.

I don’t know what I was trying to say on my hub/routing question…

I was confusing the levels of subnets with routers/hubs i.e. for every level or branch you needed I though you there by adding another piece of hardware… I think that’s what I was trying to say… obviously something hiccupped in the noodle.

Onto the next stage.

I’m trying to follow your notes in the paragraph dealing with the subnet numbers and the masks. I’ll work on that but I need a little help in visualizing the example you provided.

Cable comes into the house goes up to the second floor office. Goes to the back of the TeraPro cable modem. A 10” UTP cable goes from the modem to the Linksys unit plugged into the WAN jack. I plugged my PC the desktop one into the jack labeled one. There was some hesitation about plugging it into 2 or 3 or 4 because right beside 1 is a jack labeled “uplink”. If you plug something into that you technically disable one. So later if I have to consider another hub or switch and I decide to use the “Uplink” jack I would have to move the connection from 1. For example the way I’ve got it done now I’m using them in sequence 1, then 2, then possibly 3. If 1 has to be disabled, do you have to shift everything down? For example start at 2, then 3, then 4. Or do you just take whatever was on 1 and just plug it into 4 further down the chain or does it even matter?

So for now Jack labeled 1 on the back of the unit goes to my desktop system to one of the PCI NICs. I didn’t touch the other PCI NIC or cable that went to the Dell’s docking station and I didn’t touch as of the software in either system. It just simply works.

Technically this ends the hardwired aspect of what I want to do. Not getting into details on the subnet numbers and masks. I’ll leave that for now and decipher or learn it in a few days. If I add another desktop system I think it’s safe to say I’d just use one of the jack on the back of the Linksys as you mentioned.

Yes Dell’s been good in the two years I’ve dealt with them. I updated my 7000 Inspiron to a 7500. Absolute a horror story. In the 7000 I had the DVD/floppy replaced, then the LCD was replaced because a whole row of pixels blew out vertically in the center of the screen. Then I had a hard drive replaced and replaced a second time. Then the screen started acting up and you had to bang the back of the lid to get the screen fired up. Enough… called Dell outlined the problem and told them I’d be better off with a 7500 with dual hard disks and we worked something out!…

Okay now the wireless. I assume it’s as simple as plugging the AP (access point) into one of the free jacks on the Linksys as you mentioned. Straightforward and pretty basic. This is what I’ll try on my first attempt once I order that item and re-order a PCMCIA wireless NIC in the 340 Enterprise series… going to attempt the ordering tomorrow on Monday.

I have confusion to clean up at this point. I was reading some material on Tom Higgins website.
http://www.timhiggins.com/ppd/multiip.htm

The above URL should take to Tom’s Multiple IP option. In the first schematic the drawing shows the cable from the cable company going into the cable modem and from there a “crossover” cable is used to go to a hub. From there UTP cables got to single NIC in two computers. I ruled it out quickly because I have dynamic IP and this deals specifically with 2 static IPs. So I tried not to pay attention to this. He talks a little bit about file sharing and if you don’t have a sharing computer (server) then you don’t have a separate LAN to keep local traffic off the ISP’s network. This confuses me. Is that because he’s talking about a plain hub and not something like the switching hub in the Linksys?


The confusion lies in the fact that when the AP arrives I’ll be attempting to plug that into the Linksys as per your recommendation if I read you right… yet I think that approach parallels the first schematic in some ways…???

Fade, I really have got to thank you for hanging in here with me… you are a great help. When I decided to deal with properly setting up my network about a week ago. I was hoping I’d run across a few people that could answer the confusing parts.

I’ve seen the guys in Home Depot walking around with those wireless inventory scanners. They wear them in holsters… up here. ‘bout as close as you can come to a restricted weapon. I shoot IPSIC & PPC and in Canada trying to own a handgun is like trying to own a nuclear powered aircraft carrier your chances are about the same.

One item I haven’t dealt with and I’m avoiding it to the end. The security issue.

I logged into the Gibson Research webpage and ran that Shields up and Port scanner thing yesterday and noticed that it said my port 139 was wide open? Something to do with NetBios and undoubtedly something to do with the way I was file sharing the two systems. I couldn’t figure the leak out. So it’s partly the reason I hurried over to Future Shop. With the Linksys installed and running that test again everything is closed. I haven’t installed or considered any security software up to this point. For now I guess I can assume I’m better of than I was yesterday?

You really seem up on the Aironet/Cisco thing and you put a lot of faith in the 340 series. And you’re bang on with the assessment of wireless standards from what I’ve been reading and previously experimented with and dropped the wireless subject several months ago…

Now I think there’s a fighting chance with it… I’m hoping the AP is again more of a hardware rather than software solution, (and I think it is)… which would be nice on the Dell…

Ahhh… one last thing… or thought.

I’ve talked about my hardware vs my wireless set up and you tackled them grouped as such…

So the question is… Will I technically be able to leave my hardwired setup alone once it’s done? I then undock the notebook… it looses access to the docking station NIC. I insert the wireless PCMCIA; the notebook finds it and configures the system for use with the AP unit connected to the Linksys?

Am I messing a factor I need to consider.

Best regards Fade


John Kajfes