It's easy as hell to hack into a wireless network and see what everyone's doing. All you need is something that can pick up the signal, and boom. Privacy goes bye-bye. It's possible to encrypt data, I believe, but it's also quite difficult.
Not only that, but you can also have other devices (ie. cell phones, microwaves) interfering with your network. That's not really so bad, however. You'd get the same effect by running CAT5 cable too near other electrical cabling, so it's not like EMI is a wireless-only problem.
Unless you can find absolutely no ways to run cable from a connection to your devices, I would not recommend wireless. Anyone can see what you're doing, and while you can increase security, it can be a real hassle.
Wireless is indeed cvery easy to secure. You can easily put a 128bit Encryptopn key in and have security. I have set up 5 Wireless networks besides the one running at my house. None of them lack security and they are easy to set up. Forget a wired network unless you need something like Gigabit ethernet speeds.
But you go from the cable modem to the computer, then out of that computer to the switch, then the switch connects to however many other computers you need. If you have WinXP or 2k it's a breeze to set a network up that way, just follow the networking wizard and bam, it's up.
The wired way is not only faster, but it's cheaper, and a hell of a lot easier to do. The only bad part is having half awake clutzes moving around and stepping on the switch knocking the power connection loose and taking out the network ending a great game of RoN or DoD. Other than that, there's really no drawback to it. The wires are pretty easy to tuck away.
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A sleep deprived Fighter stammered:
Bleargh... Wireless. Only go with Wireless if you have absolutely, positively no other option.It's easy as hell to hack into a wireless network and see what everyone's doing. All you need is something that can pick up the signal, and boom. Privacy goes bye-bye. It's possible to encrypt data, I believe, but it's also quite difficult.
Not only that, but you can also have other devices (ie. cell phones, microwaves) interfering with your network. That's not really so bad, however. You'd get the same effect by running CAT5 cable too near other electrical cabling, so it's not like EMI is a wireless-only problem.
Unless you can find absolutely no ways to run cable from a connection to your devices, I would not recommend wireless. Anyone can see what you're doing, and while you can increase security, it can be a real hassle.
Actually isn't hard to get the security so Joe Haxx0r can't see your computer. You can set upa WEP key which you only have to input once and will keep away and casual snoops. Also you can limit which MAC addresses(Which are completely unique) the router will give access to. If you use both of those you are more likely to catch something from the net itself than someone hacking into your wireless.
Also, for your purposes a 802.11b router will be quite sufficient. It has 11mb transfer which is far more than a cable connection and goes farther than 802.11a. If you feel the need for speed or have too much money on your you can go with 802.11g which is faster than A with the range of B.
Edit to Beta: Wiring wouldn't be faster. They would have to run a new cable line into his computer room which from experience is far slower than plugging in the wireless router and running through a wizard. [ 02-06-2004: Message edited by: Alaan ]
As for wireless being slower... there's a 100+ Mbps wireless router and NIC out now.
Wireless is so easy it's a nice choice if you can afford it.
Fighter is definitely talking out his ass, though. Getting the range to be long enough is a hassle. I'd be surprised if you can connect to our network from outside at all. You might be able to from strategic spots like just outside the door. But, if I see you trying to steal my megahurtz outside my door you get the knife to the gut. [ 02-06-2004: Message edited by: Kalculus Kid or Mathinator or Waisz ]
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Verily, Alaan doth proclaim:
And on the note of LAN parties and what not for people that don't have wireless. As long as you have a NIC in your computer and are running XP for sure and probably 2k you can bridge your connection using windows to the NIC from your wireless card. From there you can hook it into a hub or switch. Works well from seeing it on Waisz's machine.
Heh, yeah, the only downside there is windows will hose it after every reformat, but it's not too hard to set back up.
Also, the only security I have on my network is so that your basic Windows program can't see the network unless you type in the network name. Not at all secure, but again, who gives a damn? I'm not a business.
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There was much rejoicing when Kalculus Kid or Mathinator or Waisz said this:
Wireless is so easy it's a nice choice if you can afford it.
That's one of the biggies. Alot of my friends would switch to highspeed wireless, but it costs hell of alot more than 100mbit ethernet networks do. My friend who freqently plays hosts to LAN parties would love to do it, but it's totally impractical to switch, even just the 4 computers in his house to wireless. It's too expensive. Then again 3 out of the usual 10 computers at our LANs were build completely out of spare parts, but hey.
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How.... Beta Tested.... uughhhhhh:
That's one of the biggies. Alot of my friends would switch to highspeed wireless, but it costs hell of alot more than 100mbit ethernet networks do. My friend who freqently plays hosts to LAN parties would love to do it, but it's totally impractical to switch, even just the 4 computers in his house to wireless. It's too expensive. Then again 3 out of the usual 10 computers at our LANs were build completely out of spare parts, but hey.
Well, 11mpbs is still gonna cut it for any lan game, given that the host computer is wired in or on highspeed.
I dunno why wireless get all the hate
Actually, a 64-player BF1942 game uses ~6mbps at most, from what I understand. So, that's still less than 11mbps wireless. [ 02-06-2004: Message edited by: Kalculus Kid or Mathinator or Waisz ]
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Kalculus Kid or Mathinator or Waisz wrote this then went back to looking for porn:I dunno why wireless get all the hate
Seriously. Wireless routers are down around 50-75 bucks now and cards for computers are down to around 25-30. G runs a bit more but like you said 11mb is more than enough for most uses.
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Azizza had this to say about the Spice Girls:
Becaseu people would rather not learn something newSeriously. Wireless routers are down around 50-75 bucks now and cards for computers are down to around 25-30. G runs a bit more but like you said 11mb is more than enough for most uses.
[ 02-06-2004: Message edited by: Kalculus Kid or Mathinator or Waisz ]
<--- click the face. 108mbps. 99 dollars. That should pretty much trump the whole anti-wireless thing, heh.
I still use the wireless though when I use xbox (ishugelol) live. Yes, I'm too lazy to run a second cable.
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Alaan painfully thought these words up:
....
Edit to Beta: Wiring wouldn't be faster. They would have to run a new cable line into his computer room which from experience is far slower than plugging in the wireless router and running through a wizard.
It wouldn't be possible, My computer is going to be on a whole different floor of the house than were the cable hooks up. ThatÂ’s why I was wondering if I have to have the Cable modem connected strait to a computer, or if I can connect it to the router and have the wireless network pick up the connection. The connection happens to be in our living room on the first floor, my room were I want das puter is on the 2nd floor, and on the opposite side of the house.
Problem is that my old man is not for it, He is rather obstinate about it not letting in the house, not that I am asking for him to get it, I plan to pay for it in its entirety. So before I can talk to him I have to have my shit together about setting up a wireless network and how it would effect the cable. I Know it won't effect the cable because they use totally different carrier signals in the cable line, the wireless I know little about. He is worried about having an always on connectionÂ…but I think it should be possible to set up the network were any computer could connect to it, but it should be able to disconnect off the network. Example: Our current computer is in the basement, I should be able to have it so it can log into the wireless and make use of the cable connection, but once logged out, there is no longer a connection to the network.
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Kalculus Kid or Mathinator or Waisz had this to say about Cuba:
<--- click the face. 108mbps. 99 dollars. That should pretty much trump the whole anti-wireless thing, heh.
Yup, and you'll get 54MBPS with regular 802.11G and 11mbps with 802.11B (for the client machines).
The only downsides to wireless is that the range is a little limited (normally signal starts to take a big hit at 100') and it's a little pricier than a wired setup.
With some hardware now supporting 256bit WEP and all the other security precausions available, security isn't a concern as long as you're careful when you set things up.
That said, I've got the entire house wired with cat5 and if I had the choice, I'd choose to do it that way again. It's just a little more peace of mind.
No, Really. Bite me.
As for shutting it off. What OS are you using? Somewhere in XP I believe there is a setting that kills the connection when you log off. I will attempt to track that down if you have XP.
Nothing like sitting in the hot tub and surfing the net
Plus it is nice to be able to move about the house with my laptop and not have to drag a 100' cable behind me.
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Azizza attempted to be funny by writing:
Range is an issue. My entire house get an 80% or better signal. I can even use it oustide without any real problems.Nothing like sitting in the hot tub and surfing the net
Plus it is nice to be able to move about the house with my laptop and not have to drag a 100' cable behind me.
The laptop is the entire reason we have a wireless network. My dad likes to sit on the couch surfing eBay or playing poker and not be stuck to a desk or have cat-5 dangling all over the place. Otherwise all the wiring would of been easy. Our basement is currently unfinished, so running cable wouldn't of been hard at all. [ 02-06-2004: Message edited by: Alaan ]
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Alaan had this to say about dark elf butts:
....As for shutting it off. What OS are you using? Somewhere in XP I believe there is a setting that kills the connection when you log off. I will attempt to track that down if you have XP.
If I can convince my old man to do it, everyone will be useing XP Home. I will not let my butthole little bro put his puter on it with his stolen copy of XP Pro.
