homenetworking

My niece attends highschool accompanied by a Toshiba laptop with a wireless network interface card. The school is ORiNOCO optimized. She does her research on the web, instant messages her project partners, emails her homework (among other things: I've seen WinAmp and a LimeWire icon on her start menu).

Last week she asked me to tie her bedroom into the family's existing two-computer network with Oceanic's RoadRunner internet access. Mom's office computer is hubbed for the laptop (because it was Mom's laptop first!) and there's space on one of her desks. In Mom's office. Of course.

At first we went for wireless. The guys at CompUSA hadn't heard of ORiNOCO but sold me a Wireless Access Point + Cable/DSL Router w/ 4-Port Switch anyway and told me if it didn't work I'd have fourteen days to bring it back. It was back in two: turns out that <b>ORiNOCO</b> uses a proprietary encryption solution - but two days with the Linksys product convinced me that it was home networking heaven right out of the box! We traded the $240 Wireless AP for the $99 EtherFast 4-Port Cable/DSL Router and forty feet of CAT5 wiring and had the whole house back online in less than an hour with one hub to spare.

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Monday, November 05, 2001