GOING WIRELESS: What You Should Know
A lot of us power computer users are getting tired of the endless tangle of wires that encase our workstation. And we try all kinds of home remedies to make our stations look less cluttered, and most don't work. One time, I tried twisting all of my cables together and wrapping them with electrical tape. Didn't work. Why? Two weeks later I bought a DV (Digital Video) PCI card, and removing the DV USB adapter required me to cut the tape and unravel the wires that I had just raveled. Then there is home networking. That requires even more cables since I have both my PC Workstation and XBOX hooked up to a DSL router that was recently installed. However, the DSL router is wireless-ready. All I need is a wireless adapter for my PC, and I can handle cables running to my XBOX. Soon, my wife will be the proud owner of an Apple iMac G5, a sleek computer where the guts are hidden behind a 17 inch LCD screen. The only cable is the power cord. Now that wireless is quickly becoming the way of the future, as well as clean up our wire-entangled workstations, here are some facts about wireless networking and why it is so iffy at this point, and the pros and cons about wireless keyboards and mice.
Wireless internet is quickly becoming an amenity being offered by coffee shops, book stores, airports and even munipalities. Several California cities are entirely wireless. You can check your e-mail on your notebook PC from any point in town, even while in your car (passenger, of course). And while wireless internet is taking on the world by storm, let's remember no one is very sure how secure it is, or how well hackers have managed to break into wireless transfers. It's very easy to capture data between two points, or routers. For some time, my wife's notebook PC was picking up a wireless signal from somewhere in our northwest Oklahoma City apartment building. I had the option to join, but didn't. The question is, does the owner of the router have the ability to see the hard drive information on my PC? You do, of course, have to set up both computers on any given network in order to be on the same network, so I had to simply refuse to establish my point on someone else's wireless signal. And, wireless routers come with hardware firewall, so there is some sense of security, but you are still left vulnerable. Its always best to assume you are.
Now, let's move along to wireless components. Wireless keyboards, mice, and printers can all connect to your PC via an infrared port on your motherboard. All it takes is some simple configuration on your Windows setup wizard, along with the driver files on CD-ROM, and synchronizing the signal. On Linux, depending on which distro, the components will be automatically detected and configured for you, and you do not need your CD-ROM, as it was written for Windows operating systems. Mac OS X will require the same routine as Windows, and some components will put Mac driver files on the same CD-ROM.
But at question is the performance of these devices. Some keyboards have been known to lag depending on how fast you type, and some show no difference than a conventional keyboard. With a wireles mouse, there are no differences in accuracy, only that you have to worry about battery power. Same with the keyboard. Wireless printers may take an extra second to receive data from the infrared port to begin a printing job, and no complaints have been made about bad printing quality, but that extra second goes virtually unnoticed. These componenets today are no doubt more expensive than cable-fed components, and prices will no doubt drop in the near future, but a dramatic difference is made in the appearance around your workstation. At this point, I am uncertain whether multiple devices sharing the same infrared port will effect performance since there is only one port on a motherboard, but don't be surprised to see a change in design in the coming months.
Originally Posted by swake
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