How to get my wife online whilst she recovers from surgery.
Written: Jun 17 '02 (Updated Jun 17 '02)
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Pros: Fast and easy to set up. Looks good.
Cons: None yet
The Bottom Line: 15 mins setup tops and most of that was unplugging and plugging in the wires. Looks nice, feels sturdy and is upgradable with many options for connectivity.
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| ashmason's Full Review: Linksys (BEFW11S4) 802.11b Wireless Access Point |
Recently my wife had to have surgery that has her mostly confined to the bed. After a few days, of course she's bored.
We already have a home network running using a linksys router and Netgear Hub. I had been looking for a good excuse and here it was.
I picked this up at CompUSA so paid a little more for the convenience, and also got a PCMCIA card for the laptop.
Installation was a snap, there is a fold out quick start guide with pictures, anyone can connect this thing. It comes with a config CD that you can use instead of the quick start guide, but I chose not to as I don't like automated programs messing with my machine.
So it was a case of powering down the PC and cable modem, unplugging my existing equipment and plugging both machines back in along with the Cable (wan) connection. I powered everything up as suggested, Router, then modem, then PC.
As I already had a network set up, I had nothing to do. It found my connection and I was up and running. Wow, just two years ago this used to take a little fiddling.
Then it was into the router config to have a poke around. I set the Rip2 on in the advanced section (this just lets the router adapt automatically to network changes) and renamed the wireless connection to my own name as suggested in the guide.
Ok, now on to the laptop. First up, the software was installed. No problems here. Then on reboot, it said to insert the card before the desktop appeared. I found this a little odd but followed the directions. It saw the card, installed itself and instructed me to reboot. I did so and up popped a little icon and a dialog box telling me it was outdated. Oh no.... but then it told me to 'Click here to upgrade' it upgraded the Flash Bios and then I was all set. It found the network and I proudly presented my wife with the laptop so she could check her e-mail.
Awesome!
Not sure why but this seems faster than my old setup, I have less wires and equipment under my desk, am able to mix hard wired connections with wireless and best of all, there seems to be no degradation in the wireless connection speed.
Equipment used:
Pentium 3 500 Desktop from ABS computers with 256 Ram (now three years old) running Windows ME
Dell Latitude 300CPI with 128 ram, also running ME
Very happy with this solution, best of all there are so many options for expansion. Uplink to another hub, wireless cards, USB wireless stations, wireless printer etc.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 179.95
Driver Availability: Windows, Linux, and Mac
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Epinions.com ID:
ashmason
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Member: Ashley Mason
Location: Torrance, California
Reviews written: 38
Trusted by: 3 members
About Me:
Arrrgh, I'm turning into an American!
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