Now it's time for your crash course in Internet Protocol. This is a brief, simplified introduction to what IP is and how your network and the Internet use it to function. IP is part of the TCP/IP suite of protocols that have become the global standard for Internet communications. The TCP/IP protocol...

There are several types of antenna available for home Wi-Fi networks. The type of antenna you choose will depend on how you are planning on extending the signal to increase the coverage area. Some of the available antenna types are described in the following subsections. Omni directional Vertical Polarity...

An alternative for remote control, automation, and monitoring is the XANBOO system. XANBOO systems use a proprietary protocol called AFMII. Devices using the AFMii protocol communicate with one another using a proprietary 418 MHz transceiver technology. The XANBOO system can bridge to other protocols...

By now, you've learned to take the advertised signal ranges of most Wi-Fi products with a grain of salt. That is, the advertised signal range rarely translates to the range that you will actually experience when you install the product. There are far too many variables that affect the range; most of...

If you don't have or can't get broadband Internet access, you can still share your Internet connection on your WLAN, but I wouldn't advise it. Even a good dial-up connection is slow, and, with more than one user online, it slows to a crawl. If you still want to make a dial-up connection available to...

To share an Internet connection, you can use connection-sharing software in place of a hardware router. The software performs the same job as a router and enables multiple users to share a single Internet connection. The sophistication of connection-sharing software varies. Some solutions are very configurable,...

If you decided to use a software access point rather than a hardware AP, you have to set that up to get your WLAN up and running. The setup and installation depend on the SAP software that you have chosen and are different for every vendor. The parameters are similar to those required to set up a hardware...

When you can't figure out which port your game needs opened, you can opt to open them all, which in effect turns the firewall off for that computer. When you set up a DMZ, you're telling the router not to filter traffic to or from a specific machine on your network. For example, if the IP address of...

A wireless print server is an efficient way to share a printer among several wireless clients. Although you can use an adapter to make each printer available on your WLAN, this can slow users down if there are a lot of clients using the same printer. A wireless print server can perform many of the same...

By carefully planning the physical layout of your WLAN, you will get the best performance and spend the least amount of money on equipment. Start with a rough sketch of the floor plan of your home or office where you are going to install your network and determine the area you want your WLAN to cover....