ryo1
08-09-02, 03:13 PM
Hi all,
I usually post in the teams forum. For those of you who know me from the teams forum, you may recall that my wife was diagnosed with ovarian cancer back in May. She is responding well to treatment, however the chemo kicks her butt for about 10 days out of every 21 day cycle between treatments. Because she has difficulty spending enough time at the store to keep up with the bookkeeping that she has always done in the past she ends up getting frustrated and depressed. When I suggest that we hire a part time bookkeeper to help her, I usually get a tearful response.
That is why I am here. I am trying to come up with a cost effective solution to this problem. I need to keep it cost effective as the medical bills are significant.
Here is the current situation:
4 computers at home-
1:main box and folding 1800+ xp with win xp pro
2:folding box 1200 athlon with win 98
3:kids box and folding located downstairs 750 Duron with win 98
4:folding box K6-2 500 with win 98
1 computer at the store-
old pentium 150 that works well for the data entry and bookkeeping tasks that are required of it.
Direct line of sight from roof of house to roof of store 2 miles away.
None of the computers are currently networked together. Each computer has it's own modem and currently accesses the internet via my dialup ISP, as I do not yet have access to DSL or cable in my rural location.
This is what I want to be able to do in order of priority:
1:Make it possible for Annette to access the files and programs that are on the computer at the store from a computer at home. That way she can take the frequent breaks she needs to, yet still be able to accomplish the work that she wants to.
2:Network all of the computers in my home to be able to access the internet through my main box in order to prevent the frequent lockups I experience when more than one tries to upload my folding wu's at the same time. Will have to wait to do this until funds allow.
3:To integrate all of this to share a 1 way or 2 way satellite connection such as DirecTv's DirecWa system. This I hope to be able to do within a year. I would like to be able to use this connection at the store as well.
Current possibility for dealing with my first priority:
Buying 2 D-Link air plus DWL-520+ PCI adapters and installing 1 at the store and 1 in a computer at the house.
http://www.dlink.com/products/digitalHome/wireless/11b+/dwl520+/
Buying 2 parabolic directional antennas with roof mount hardware. Pmant 15, 15 db gain(with appropriate pigtail to connect N male to reverse sma connectors from hyperlink).
http://www.pacwireless.com/html/directional.htm
Then connecting the PCI adapters to the rooftop antennas and running them in ad-hoc mode,using NETBUIE.
What led me to this idea was an article describing the use of two Yagi antennas in an experiment to see how far 802.11b could be sent effectively.
They were using 24 db gain antennas and ended up having a 14 Km effective range. One of the antennas was a roof mount, the other was handheld attached to a notebook computer.
If this works I can solve my first problem with about a $350 investment.
SO this is where I need your input.
a: Does anyone else out there think that this will work?
b: Does anyone know of better, more cost effective equipment that could be used.
c: If I do this (and actually succeed), what hardware would I then need to begin collecting to be able to complete the other 2 priorities on my list? (ie: routers, hubs, switches. could I use HPNA for the computers at home and still integrate it to a satellite system later? etc. etc.)
Any input on any of these three questions would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you in advance,
ryo
I usually post in the teams forum. For those of you who know me from the teams forum, you may recall that my wife was diagnosed with ovarian cancer back in May. She is responding well to treatment, however the chemo kicks her butt for about 10 days out of every 21 day cycle between treatments. Because she has difficulty spending enough time at the store to keep up with the bookkeeping that she has always done in the past she ends up getting frustrated and depressed. When I suggest that we hire a part time bookkeeper to help her, I usually get a tearful response.
That is why I am here. I am trying to come up with a cost effective solution to this problem. I need to keep it cost effective as the medical bills are significant.
Here is the current situation:
4 computers at home-
1:main box and folding 1800+ xp with win xp pro
2:folding box 1200 athlon with win 98
3:kids box and folding located downstairs 750 Duron with win 98
4:folding box K6-2 500 with win 98
1 computer at the store-
old pentium 150 that works well for the data entry and bookkeeping tasks that are required of it.
Direct line of sight from roof of house to roof of store 2 miles away.
None of the computers are currently networked together. Each computer has it's own modem and currently accesses the internet via my dialup ISP, as I do not yet have access to DSL or cable in my rural location.
This is what I want to be able to do in order of priority:
1:Make it possible for Annette to access the files and programs that are on the computer at the store from a computer at home. That way she can take the frequent breaks she needs to, yet still be able to accomplish the work that she wants to.
2:Network all of the computers in my home to be able to access the internet through my main box in order to prevent the frequent lockups I experience when more than one tries to upload my folding wu's at the same time. Will have to wait to do this until funds allow.
3:To integrate all of this to share a 1 way or 2 way satellite connection such as DirecTv's DirecWa system. This I hope to be able to do within a year. I would like to be able to use this connection at the store as well.
Current possibility for dealing with my first priority:
Buying 2 D-Link air plus DWL-520+ PCI adapters and installing 1 at the store and 1 in a computer at the house.
http://www.dlink.com/products/digitalHome/wireless/11b+/dwl520+/
Buying 2 parabolic directional antennas with roof mount hardware. Pmant 15, 15 db gain(with appropriate pigtail to connect N male to reverse sma connectors from hyperlink).
http://www.pacwireless.com/html/directional.htm
Then connecting the PCI adapters to the rooftop antennas and running them in ad-hoc mode,using NETBUIE.
What led me to this idea was an article describing the use of two Yagi antennas in an experiment to see how far 802.11b could be sent effectively.
They were using 24 db gain antennas and ended up having a 14 Km effective range. One of the antennas was a roof mount, the other was handheld attached to a notebook computer.
If this works I can solve my first problem with about a $350 investment.
SO this is where I need your input.
a: Does anyone else out there think that this will work?
b: Does anyone know of better, more cost effective equipment that could be used.
c: If I do this (and actually succeed), what hardware would I then need to begin collecting to be able to complete the other 2 priorities on my list? (ie: routers, hubs, switches. could I use HPNA for the computers at home and still integrate it to a satellite system later? etc. etc.)
Any input on any of these three questions would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you in advance,
ryo