Wireless connection questions...

[FreshFish]

I am very new to wireless networking...so bear with me...

My girlfriend is living in an apt. so naturally there are a lot of wireless networks, secure and unsecure within range of her computer. We got a second hand Netgear wireless router from her mom (just the router and power cord) and hooked it up to the modem. We are using the software that came with her wireless adapter, and when we check the wireless networks in the area a list of like 15 pops up!
First of all I dont know which network is the one we should be connecting to (the one with the strongest signal?) and I also would like to know how to set up some sort of security for her and her roommates...

Thanks for any information!

 

[PawNtheSandman]

First hardwire a computer to the router. Go into the router settings (usually via IP address like 192.168.2.1 etc). There you can see what channel it is broadcasting, and all other information that you will need in order to figure out which wireless network to connect to. Also, that is where you can set up your wireless security as well, and older netgear router will probably have WEP. Always go with the highest level avaliable (probably 128). When you set up the WEP encryption, have it generate a key. Make sure you have it written down because you will need it later .Once that is set, when you try connecting any of the wireless machines to the network, it will want to know the wireless key, this is the key that is generated for you when you set up the encryption on the router. Enter the key and you are granted access to the wireless network. Just note that 128bit WEP is easy to crack, but someone will have to put in a little bit of time to get in. WEP will block out all the general people from snooping. There are other routers out there with more secure methods of encryption but I am just going by what you are using.

 

[ktwebb]

I would suggest downloaing and installing netstumbler to see just what your looking at here. What channels the other AP's are using. If you really can pickup 15 AP's with the windows utility your going to be fighting a very ugly uphill battle on your own WLAN stability wise. Wow, 15 other WLAN's or at least APs. I'll be somewhat amazed if you can get your gear working without major issues. I would probably go ahead and spend the extra few bucks buying .11a equipment. But since you already have the gear I guess it's worth a shot. Download and read the manual if you don't have a paper copy. All you questions about getting to and configuring will be in there and somewhat specific to your brand and model. Meaning suggestions here will be very generic.