My house currently has two desktop computers and one which we will purchase soon. A gateway computer without any sort of wirelesss card and we are purchasing a compaq presario with a Wireless LAN 802.11 b/g PCI card. We already have a cable modem and a wireless router (Linksys Wireless-G 2.4 Broadband Router) which is run through the modem. I know this is working properly because I have tested it with a notebook before. My question is: a) will the new computer work with my current setup and without buying any more equipment b) I have a hp psc 2175 all-in-one printer currently hooked up to my gateway computer through USB. The computer has one ethernet slot which is currently occupied by the modem/router. Is there any way I can make it so I can print on the new computer to my printer using some sort of wireless technology? I also have a third question without as much precendence. Our third, oldest computer has windows 98 and 64 MB Ram. We have this simply to access the internet. I am not even sure if I can hook it up to the wireless router so I just use dial up. I was curious what I would need to get to hook that up to both. It has one ehternet port. In addition I don't know much of anthing about installing PCI cards which is probably why it isn't networked now. So if anyone can tell me installing them is easy and give me directions or an alternative I would appreciate it. Thankyou for reading the lengthy question and for any advice!

No reason why it wouldn't! Turn off and unplug the machine. Open the case and you will find where several "cards" are already in their expansion slots. These slots basicly come in 2 varieties, older AGP slot are about 5 inches long and black, PCI slots are about 3 inches long and white. Hopefully you have 1 PCI slot available, as these are newer and a bit faster (I'm not even sure they make AGP wireless cards). GO to the store and buy a wirless card for it, while you are there get a can of compressed air (remember seeing all the dust and cobwebs inside?). Blow out the machine, install the card (make sure you firmly touch the metal case BEFORE touching anything inside the machine to dispell static that may damage the electronics). Putting the card in is very straight forward, be sure it is seated firmly. Replace the cover, plug it in and boot up. Install the driver that came with the card. Considering you have already invested heavily in wireless, I guess you are going to stick with it. My misgivings are: 1. Hope you dont mind sharing your internet connection with your neighbor, a wireless signal can be read 100 yards away. 2. Click on the Networking forum for Computing.net, each page has over 100 problems hoping for solutions. Over 75% on each page are "wireless" problems! _________________________ The internet is no longer a toy, it's a COMBAT ZONE!

Regarding the security of your network you can (if your wireless router supports these): a.) disable SSID broadcast (this means the wireless network is not visible to those that don't know your SSID) b.) enable WEP encryption (if they know your there they still need the WEP password to connect) c.) enable MAC filtering (each ehternet card has a unique MAC address which you enter into the router and it only allows those to connect to the network) Martin is correct in that I have set up several wireless networks with both 98se and XP machines mixed with no undo problems with the security features mentioned above depending on the capability of the routers. You may not be able to activate all of those security features depending on the individual router. Good luck and cheers "Two roads diverged in a wood, and I - I took the one less travelled by, And that has made all the difference."