Use LINKSYS. They have the best tech service and the best product. They also seem to be totally up to date with their firmware. The Linksys also has a REAL easy to fallow set of directions for set up. Belkins tech people suck. I purchased some of their print server stuff and I am about ready to toss it.

As far as wireless or hard wired goes. Hard wired is faster then wireless, however wireless is real nice because it allowes you freedom. However depending on the construction of your house you may or may not have good coverage. My house I can not go more then about 15 feet from my base before I drop. I tried the one from my parrents house that allows me to go about 300 yards from it thinking I had a bad one but got the same results...... Go with a G-Router they are faster.

Yes you can have more then one computer on the network at once. You can hard wire as many drops as you want. I believe that the cap on wireless is 16 or 17 computers. Should be plenty for a personal aplication.

I use the Linksys wireless too but I have found it work best when placed in the most central part of the house you can find. I have had signal loss problems when I was using a laptop for tuning my car in the driveway.

Roby

Anone try D-link? There spec sheet looks good, but of course you can write anything that you like.

Thanks for all the inputs - Greg

If you have AOL you need to use different screen names if you all want to be on the computer at the same time. Then you all can be on the same website or be on different websites at the same time..

Thankfully I'm not subjected to AOL

-Greg

True. It will be like you are the only one on the internet and will in no way effect any other user. You will also be able to download at maximum speed even if you have 5 people downloading at the same time and will not slow at all. The only time you would notice a slowdown would be if you were all transferring files from computer to computer or transferring files from a wired computer to a wireless computer. (it will kick it down to under 10MBps). But bottom line if you can receive a good signal in all areas you will be very happy with it.

Roby

Jon (and everybody else using Linksys that has a range issue),

If you have the Linksys, I have a hack to turn up the power on the wireless transceiver. I turned mine up and reached the farthest corners of my house (but I backed it down a notch cause they supposedly run too hot wide open). Factory output is 28mW. Max is 84mW. Mine is set to 64mW. Doesn't mean you can go three times as far, but it did rather dramatically improve the signal strength (measured at the compters in dB) and gave considerably more coverage.

Regardless of whether you normally use AOL or not, the connection will be thru the NETWORK IP connection, which will be the cable modem and provided by the router to the network. You can browse without being logged into ANYBODY's service as long as the router is properly connected. If you want to log onto and use the AOL service, then yes you will need to log onto it using a username that is not currently already logged in somewhere else.

mcollinstn, what's the hack that that you did?

Chris

You gotta flash a "custom" version of the firmware to it that includes the ability for you to issue "direct commands" to the operating parameters.

Then you simply run the administrative window and issue the proper command to reset the output power.

I have the firmware version on my computer, but I honestly don't recall which link I found it at. There are now about a zillion different firmware hacks out there.

Here's where I found all the stuff.
(note: I am using a wrt54g, if you are using a different linksys item, there is a hack for it but the firmware and commands are different).
http://www.seattlewireless.net/index.cgi/LinksysWrt54g



Mine's filename is: wrt54g-1.42.2-webconsole.bin

Then after logging into the router's shell (like you would do to configure it), you go to the Administration tab. Go to the Firmware Upgrade tab. Browse out your modified firmware file and flash it to the unit.

After reset and restart, go back to the router shell.
Go to the Administration tab.
Go to the Diagnostics tab.
Click the Console button to go into Debug mode (this is new from the modded firmware).
In the command box type:

/usr/sbin/wl -i eth2 txpwr 84

Click the PING button
Close the shell program connection.

(the 84 can be anything from 1 to 84. 28 is factory. mine is set to 64)

You are finished.

You can acess your router config by using this link incase you forgot or lost your book.

http://192.168.1.1/

Roby