The Idiots Primer To Wi-Fi Internet Connections
After having recently struggled with setting up Wi-Fi, here’s a short list of info that might be useful to those of you starting out. Knowing is half the battle.
- To get wireless internet in your home, you need an always-on internet connection and a wireless router. I’m told you can also use a wireless access point.
- A wireless router is a mini computer with no screen, probably running linux. That means once you’ve initially configured it via your desktop computer, it can run on its own. In other words, you do not need your desktop computer be powered on in order for the wireless internet to work.
- If you’re setting up Wi-Fi because you want to connect your Nintendo Wii or Nintendo DS to the internet, check that your router is compatible first: official “not working” list, unofficial list.
- Be sure to use 128bit encryption, or others will mooch off of your Wi-Fi connection.
If you’re having trouble connecting your Mac to your newly setup connection, it’s probably due to one machine using ASCII WEP Keys, the other one using HEX WEP keys. To resolve, try typing in $ before the WEP Key. For example, if you’re WEP Key is 00000000000000000000000000, try typing in $00000000000000000000000000 as the WEP Key on your Mac.
Thanks to Mr. Cabanillas and Mr. Heilemann for tips.
Update: See comments for insights.
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Shouldn’t you use WPA instead of WEP? I understood WPA is more secure?
Probably, though my cheap ass D-Link DI-524 AirPlus G router doesn’t seem to support that. I could be wrong.
Bottomline is, a 128bit WEP key is MUCH more protection than no WEP key, which — at least here in Denmark — seems to be what people do the most.
The reviews I saw of it mentioned WPA, and this PDF says it has it as well. I’ve also heard WPA is much more secure, though I’ve never bothered to do any research, i just use it.
In any case, I’d like to know how the D-link works for you. Two friends and I have all had terrible experiences with various D-link products in the past. Constant dropouts and the like even with strong signals.
Oh well, that’s only good news for me then.
In one sentence, it’s working great even if it was the cheapest one I could find.
Initially, as this post also indicates, I was having some trouble with the Wi-Fi — especially with regards to making it work with my existing home network / with the Mac. As it turns out, I just had to rename a few IP addresses and use that dollarsign trick on the Mac, and it’s been working since.
The signal is very strong. I don’t have a big apartment, but the signal strenght is always full, no matter where in the apartment I am. I haven’t yet experienced any drop-outs.
To be fair, I haven’t used this router for more than a week, so a) the fact that I haven’t experienced dropouts may just be due to blind luck and b) I haven’t used the net for heavy downloading, so I can’t say whether it’s max transmission speed feels slow.
also:
don’t broadcast your SSID (network name)
change your admin password
use wpa, wep is practically useless, can be cracked by anyone.
use mac filtering to limit who can come on your network, or limit the amount of connections the network can assign.
Gareth,
Good additions, thanks. I wasn’t aware such a level of security was actually necessary, and that WEP codes were so easily cracked.
it depends if you mind people leeching off you bandwidth, we pay per gb so its a pain to have an open network. Also if you are doing anything like online banking, its essential.
Not many people bother with any of this, for example when looking for house shares in london, you will find that free wifi means we nick the neighbours.
Don’t disable ssid broadcast. Some configurations prefer networks that broadcast ssids. For example, Windows XP will connect to a network that broadcasts a ssid over a network that doesn’t. And disabling the ssid broadcast only disables one of five beaconing mechanisms that actively broadcast the ssid.
Don’t filter MACs or disable DHCP. Hackers will simply copy and paste valid MACs and manually assign themselves an IP address.
Also, your bank is probably using SSL, so you don’t have to trust the network. You’ll just need to trust your machine.
All you have to do is WPA if you can (WEP if you truly can’t) and change the admin password. This article explains why other methods are ineffective or have a low ROI of your effort: http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/Ou/?p=43
ha! well that showed me