The New Wireless

Well I have the new wireless network up and running at the casa. Shopping for a new wireless router was pretty eye opening. If you are waiting for the price of wireless networks to come down, you time has come. Yesterday at Best Buy, I could have bought a Netgear 802.11b wireless router for $30.00 after a $40.00 rebate. That is insanely cheap. If you have a high speed Internet connection, and a laptop, you can't beat the convenience of being on the Internet wherever you are in the house, or my favorite, out in the back yard.

Even though the Netgear was an incredible deal, I went with the Linksys. I got it so that I could play with it and learn as much about it as I could. I am the network administrator for Ourfarm as I have mentioned in a previous blog, and they have a Linksys that is fussy. I have tried a million things to make it more bullet-proof, and thus far I have come up short. Now that I own one, maybe I can figure it out.

Today, I am taking Wyatt to get his haircut so I am going to stop the blog here.

OUT!

Wireless Network Crash-ola

OK, what the heck? I came home the other day to find that my home wireless network had caved. It was less than a year old, and now...caput! It was a Siemens 802.11b wireless router and needless to say, I don't believe I will be buying another one from them. I think my next will be a linksys.

But, my decision isn't cut and dried! I have put a Linksys in at Our Farm (a non-profit organization here in Arkansas), and they have had a lot of problems with it dropping clients. I have tried a number of things to make it start working and I have failed to isolate their problem. So, I think it is a good idea to get one for my home network so that I can play with it and learn.

I was hoping to save up some money and get a media router for my stereo, but with my recent purchase of a Dell DJ, I tend to hook that into the stereo to hear my music. The media router bug has gone dormant. I might get one later. The more pressing issue is whether or not to get an 802.11g network or an 802.11b. The 'g' network is 5 times faster than the 'b' network which will allow me to do some pretty neat stuff in the future such as streaming movies and making fast transfers between my home computers, but as of yet, I don't have anything that will take advantage of the faster speed. Do I build for the future, or do I save some money now and go with the 'b'? It is a delimma.

I will keep you posted as I know you are probably on the edge of your seat wondering what will happen next. I mean, what could be more exciting than wireless networking really?

OUT!