Datasheet

Making Computers Talk
682
together, run the Set Up a Network Wizard on your Windows Vista machine(s),
run a special program that Vista sticks on a key disk on the other machines,
and your network is ready to use.
That’s the theory, anyway. Surprisingly, at least 90 percent of the time, it
works. I go into all the details in the next chapter.
Adding wireless
What’s the biggest problem with Ethernet? The cables. Unless your office or
home has been wired with those big eight-wire Ethernet cables, you have to
string them across the floor or under the rug, run them up and down stair-
cases, or hang them out the window and pray they don’t blow away. Don’t
laugh. I’ve done all that and more.
Wireless networking relies on radio transmitters and receivers in place of
Ethernet’s cables. You need a wireless access point (which goes by a lot of
different names, most commonly WAP, as in, uh,
Whap!), wireless receivers
plugged into each PC (possibly by a card or connected via a USB adapter),
or wireless built into the computer (common with laptops).
Wireless networks use the same kind of technology as everyday wireless
telephones: The part that moves (the telephone handset) communicates
with a base that stays put (the phone cradle). Wireless connections suffer all
the problems that you’ve no doubt encountered with portable telephones:
✦ The signal gets weaker as you move farther away from the base station,
and at some point it disappears.
✦ If the base gets unplugged, everything goes bananas.
✦ Other people can eavesdrop on your conversations, unless you’re
cautious. Ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.
I go into detail about wireless networking in Book IX, Chapter 3.
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