TECH TALK ^
Going WiFi Building your own wireless network
By Alice Hill
My favorite early home-networking product was “LAN in a Can,” which gave home users a
basic peer-to-peer network nearly a decade before Napster made the term “peer-to-peer”
cool. But there was no market for it, and it bombed. Today, the wired home is more likely to
contain one if not two PCs, a printer and possibly a laptop borrowed from the office—yet
few people know how relatively painless it is now to set up a wireless network. If you want to
make a little extra cash this summer, or upgrade your dial-up
The next trend in home networking is the wireless
LAN—or “WiFi.” No one wants to run cable between
rooms and add new wall jacks to share a few files,
so wireless is the smarter alternative. To succeed
where previous products failed, the WiFi home
network not only enables multiple PCs to
share files and printers, it also supports multi
ple and simultaneous Internet connections,
including broadband cable or DSL. That means
Dad can be checking his online portfolio on his
laptop while you and a friend play a little multiplay
er Quake ill. Try that with LAN in a Can!
What's in a Standard?
Get the propeller hat on for this next part. The official WiFi standard is called
802.11 b—small wonder someone came up with snappier-sounding WiFi instead. Apple pio
neered 802.11 b, then it was adopted by Toshiba and Compaq. It’s likely to be widely used
in businesses.
To get that power into the home, Lucent technologies recently unveiled an 802.11 b line
ot products called the Orinoco
Residential Gateway
(wavelan.com/products/product
detail.html?id=29) specifically for
broadband connections. An Orinoco
setup will run you about $400 for a
desktop and laptop kit, and you can
Laptops can roam freely throughout
the house and even into the yard.
Connections are always on and
always high speed, no matter what
PC you're using or where.
Duy components at wwwz.warehouse.com/kiosk/Lucent/detault.aspfsource=xLucent.
Linksys, known for great inexpensive home routers (wires required) has a new wireless
network for broadband connections that also adds a firewall for security. You can pick up a
Linksys solution for under $500 at provantage.com/scripts/go.dll. For Mac users,
Apple has the Airport, a futuristic-looking wireless transceiver that delivers 11 Mbps of net
working power up to 150 feet away. Developed in conjunction with Lucent, an Airport hook
up runs about $299 ($99 for the laptop card version).
Plug and Co
Setting up a WiFi LAN is fairly simple. You connect your cable modem or DSL line to the
transceiver, plug the transceiver into your PCs USB port, and then add a transceiver to
every PC in the home. Laptops use a PC Card version and can
roam freely throughout the house and even into the yard.
Connections are always on and
always high speed, no matter what
PC you’re using or where.
If your budget is tight, or you
have a dial-up connection, a wireless RF
(radio frequency) network may be the
ticket. Intel’s AnyPoint Wireless network
will work with dial-up connects or high
speed DSL or cable modem. A transceiver
costs about $100 (intel.com). Throughput is
slower (1.5Mbps as compared to WiFi's 11 Mbps),
but it’s still fast enough to play multiplayer games
and access MP3s all over the house. •
Linksys laptop card
n
Photos courtesy Linksys
MUSIC
Coldplay
Parachutes
(Nettwerk America)
With Parachutes, their first album.
arriving somewhat belatedly on
these shores (it was released in their
native England last July, where it
debuted at No. 1), Coldplay now has to
face an American audience. Two princi
pal Yank objections to the London
based quartet are likely: 1) They Ye
merely the latest band to be megahyped
by the notoriously overenthusiastic U.K.
music press, and 2) their sound is slav
ishly imitative of two Brit influences du
jour. Jeff Buckley and Radiohead.
Re: objection number one. well,
sometimes those crazy English adjective
mongers can be right, and this time they
are—Coldplay is very good indeed. As
for objection number two,,yes. the
spacey guitar tones of Chris Martin and
Jonny Buckland do recall Radiohead's
The Bends and OK Computer, and
there's more than a hint of Buckley in
Martin's tremulous vocals on tracks like
“Shiver" and “High Speed.” But lets be
fair: His nasal timbre is just as capable
of evoking Dave Matthews ( "Yellow”),
Beck (" Don't Panic"), and even, on qui
eter moments like “Spies” and
“Everything's Not Lost." the spirit of the
late Nick Drake. In truth, Coldplay is
their own band. Predominantly acoustic
but not afraid to rock, partial to melan
choly drift but buoyed by graceful
melodies, their sound may not be
unique, but once you've heard it.
chances are you'll want to hear it again
and again. -Mac Randall