Wireless all- In-One for Dummies- P5 docx

From the box that appears, you can see that this computer is connected to the renfrew network and has access to both the local network and the Internet.. The Network and Sharing Center

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You have three options:

Your computer can be discovered on the network, and firewall restrictions are somewhat relaxed

is managed by an IT department This location is virtually identical

to the Home location, except that the firewall is further tuned to allow management connections in

net-work that’s outside your control The computer will be hidden, and the firewall is very restrictive The shields are up, and phasers are set to kill!

Confirming and changing settings

Figure 6-16 shows the Vista system tray Look at the picture of the two

com-puters with the globe The icon indicates you are connected to a network

(otherwise there would be a red X on top), and the globe indicates that you

have a path to the Internet through this connection

Figure 6-16:

The Vista

system tray

Hovering over this icon gives even more details From the box that appears,

you can see that this computer is connected to the renfrew network and has

access to both the local network and the Internet The house to the left tells

you that the security location is Home Finally, the signal strength is four

bars out of five, otherwise known as Very Good

To the Control Panel!

Launch the Control Panel by choosing Start➪Control Panel Then choose

Network and Internet➪Network and Sharing Center (If you haven’t noticed

by now, everything in Vista seems much cleaner than before, just harder

to find!)

The Network and Sharing Center is shown in Figure 6-17 Along the top you

can see the same information you learned from the icon in the system tray

The bottom half shows you all the security settings In Figure 6-17, you can

see that this machine is configured for very limited sharing You may click

on each row to change the setting

con-Book II Chapter 6

the network to the place in the list you want (Windows XP had Up and Down

buttons to achieve the same thing) The Add button adds a network in much

the same way that Windows XP does it

But what’s my address?

Our final stop in the Vista configuration is to find your network

informa-tion, which is helpful to know if you ever call your service provider for help

From the Network Sharing Center, choose the Manage Network Connections

option Double-click the wireless adapter, and you see Figure 6-19

Figure 6-19:

Viewing

the adapter

status

This dialog box is almost exactly like the Windows XP counterpart You can

see that this adapter has access to the Internet through IPv4 but has limited

IPv6 connectivity (this is nothing to worry about, as most of the Internet

uses the IPv4 connections, and Vista’s trying to get ahead of the curve by

setting IP version 6),

Again, just like Windows XP, you can see the connection timer, speed,

strength, and packet counters

The Details button shows the exact IP addresses involved

Pushing Boundaries

At some point, you’re going to venture out of your house and connect to

another network, such as one in a hotel, airport, coffee shop, or another

building

102 Pushing Boundaries

Your computer is perfectly capable of keeping track of multiple tions, so connecting to a new network won’t cause any problems when you return home

configura-Most public networks are wide open and have no security They employ a

captive portal, which lets you connect to the network but immediately

redi-rects you to a login screen where you must log in, pay, or otherwise identify yourself before getting on the Internet Remember that your wireless session

is available for anyone else to capture, so be careful about typing in credit

card numbers and passwords unless the Web site is protected with Secure

Sockets Layer or Transport Layer Security (you see a lock in your browser

window if this is the case, and the address bar might even change, ing on which browser you use) Book IV, Chapter 1 discusses browser secu-rity in more depth

depend-Also, pay attention to which network you are connecting to If you are at

a hotel, you may want to check with the front desk to find the SSID of the network you should connect to There may be other open networks you can connect to, but you’d be using someone else’s network, and you can’t be sure what they’re doing to your traffic

Chapter 7: Setting Up

Other Hardware

In This Chapter

One drawback of being wire-free is that carrying your printer

every-where you go is a little tricky! Rather than plugging into the printer every time you need to print, let’s get your printer on the network, too! Many printers come with network adapters, so there’s no reason you shouldn’t be able to print from wherever you happen to be

Having your computers on the same network also means they can share files In this chapter, you discover a way to have a permanent file server on your network

Finally, if your wireless network doesn’t reach somewhere, I look at adding another access point to your network to expand that reach

Printing Wirelessly

Several years ago, the traditional way to get a printer on the network was to shell out big bucks for a printer that supported it, or to buy an adapter that had a parallel cable on one end and a network cable on the other These devices cost between $50 and $100 I’m not sure about prices in your area, but that’s as much as an entry-level printer

Over the past few years, printers have both dropped in price and become more feature rich One of the features you can expect to see on some new printers is a wireless network card This means that the printer can be placed anywhere there’s a power outlet The extra cost to get a model with the wireless card is minimal, and it’s only going to get lower

For example, the device I’m demonstrating here is a color inkjet printer that also copies, scans, and faxes It’s got an 802.11g wireless adapter that can be found online for $150

104 Printing Wirelessly

Just like the network adapter you installed earlier, you’ll need some drivers for your printer This time, the drivers tell your computer how to communi-cate with the printer over the network and how to operate the extra features such as scanning and faxing

As usual, if you’ve got a different printer than the one I’m using, your screens will be different However, the steps are similar

Before you get started, have a look at the documentation that comes with your printer The printer I’m using comes with a note that says if you intend

to use the printer on a network that you should ignore the quick start guide and refer to the network installation guide

Plug your printer in and install the ink cartridges per the directions in the manual

To set the wireless configuration on the printer, you first have to get it set

up on the wired network To do so, follow these steps:

printer and the other end into your wireless router.

Figure 7-1 shows the network port on the back of the printer

Figure 7-1:

The wired

port on the

printer

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Your printer picks up its initial address from DHCP

If your printer is nowhere near your router, bring your router to the printer rather than the other way around The only thing you lose is Internet access, which isn’t needed for the installation anyway

the initial screen, shown in Figure 7-2.

After accepting the license and going through the introductory screens, you are prompted to indicate if this is a network installation or not

You see a couple more screens of information, after which you are asked how you’re connected to the printer (shown in Figure 7-3) Method one

is the simplest, as you are already set up that way (despite the picture in Figure 7-4 showing the computer plugged into the network, it works just

as well over wireless)

If your computer has the Windows firewall enabled, then a dialog box appears so that you can make a firewall exception Figure 7-5 shows the dialog box, to which you should select Unblock

con-tinue clicking Next until you are asked how you want to print, as shown in Figure 7-6.

it on the wireless network, so select Wireless.

The software will scan for available wireless networks and then present

a list of SSIDs that you can connect to, which is shown in Figure 7-7 This

is almost identical to how you chose which network to connect your computer to

If your network uses WEP, WPA, or WPA2, you must enter a password

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configured by the software.

you can unplug the wired connection and print a test page when prompted.

Your default printer is set to the wireless printer

108 Sharing Files Wirelessly

be handy, for instance, should you move the printer to a different network From the control panel on the front of the printer, select Setup ➪Network Settings➪Wireless LAN setup From there, you can change the network set-tings, including performing a WPS setup You still need the driver on your computer to print, though

Sharing Files Wirelessly

Sharing files between computers over a network, wired or wireless, is ing new However, you do find a few disadvantages:

trend is to save energy by turning off computers when they’re not in use — which is good

If the file you need is on a laptop that’s not at home, you’ve got a problem

want to grab some of your home files when you’re at work, for example, the usual solution is to expose one of your home computers to the Internet

Book II Chapter 7

Sharing Files Wirelessly

Add to this that external USB storage is becoming larger and cheaper For

much less than $200, you can get a 1TB disk that can be used on any

com-puter in your house, without having to take anything apart Unfortunately,

after you plug one of those bad boys into your laptop, you have no more

mobility!

With the latest crop of home you simply plug the external hard drive into the

router, configure file sharing, and presto! You have a permanent file server

that you can store your stuff on In Figure 7-8, I show a picture of the back of

a Linksys WRT610N which has such a feature

A router draws far less power than a computer, is always available, and its

position in the network is ideal for performance The router is also able to

share files to both the internal network and the Internet at large because it

sits on both of those networks

Setting up file storage

Start by plugging your USB storage device into the USB port on your router

and then log in to your router’s administrative interface On the Linksys

WRT610N you access the storage configuration from the Storage menu,

which is shown in Figure 7-9

The menu shows you details about the disk that’s currently plugged in

Above, you can see I have a 2GB flash disk drive plugged in This is a good

sign because it means the router has recognized the drive If you don’t see

any drives, double-check that the USB cable is plugged in all the way and

that the hard drive has power

110 Sharing Files Wirelessly

to format the disk

Formatting the disk

Disks must be formatted and partitioned before they can be used This process lays out certain structures on the disk that the computer uses to remember where files are placed and which parts of the disk are free

You can format a disk many different ways; however, not all formats are supported by the router It’s easy to determine if you have to format your disk again — if you have the option to create a share, then you don’t have to format the disk Additionally, you can see some partitions listed in the top table

Formatting a disk deletes everything on that disk Gone! Kaput! Copy your stuff off the disk to another computer before you format; otherwise, it’s gone!

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Sharing Files Wirelessly

Follow these steps to format a disk:

the Web interface Check the button next to the name of the disk and push the Format Disk button.

You receive a warning indicating that everything on the disk will be deleted, as shown in Figure 7-10

After you’ve done that, you are asked to supply the name of a partition (see Figure 7-11)

A partition is a way to split out a disk into multiple logical disks This formatting process assigns one partition to the disk, using all available space, so the name of the partition isn’t that important

You are asked again to confirm that you’re okay with any data on the disk being wiped clean, after which the router can chug away while it formats the disk This may take a few minutes, depending on the size of your disk

112 Sharing Files Wirelessly

After the formatting is complete, you are returned to the main storage menu (see Figure 7-12) showing the partition that was just created Note that the Create Share button shows up along with the partition

Figure 7-11:

Supplying

the name of

a partition

Figure 7-12 also shows that a shared folder called public has been created

Before you can use this share, though, you must take care of some of the default security settings

Dealing with security

After you format the disk, the router creates a directory called public and shares it out with the name of Default When you connect to a network share you must provide a username and password to connect with, which pre-vents the wrong people from getting at your data

The router has created two users by default and given them access to the

share One user, guest, can only read the data, while the admin user can read

and write This is okay, but you want to set the passwords to something you know and control To do so, follow these steps:

not the one to the left of Status) to see a list of the users and groups as shown in Figure 7-13.

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114 Sharing Files Wirelessly

window, like the one in Figure 7-14, appears.

the Guest user.

Connecting to the file share

While you’re in the administration menu, make a note of the Server LAN IP

Address It’s the address of the router, which will now be your file server

address

the IP address of the router I’ve shown this in Figure 7-15 using the IP address of my router, which is 192.168.99.1.

(you can also select the Remember my password box if you don’t want

to have to log in all the time).

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After you’ve logged in, you see a list of file shares available (see Figure 7-17)

The Config file share contains a link to the administrative interface of the

router; the Default file share is the one you set up earlier

116 Adding an Access Point

Make sure to back up your data, either by periodically burning files to DVD

or making copies on other computers Or, the other way around, this central file share makes a fine backup site for your local files, should something happen to your laptop

Some of these devices have some features on top of the file sharing For instance, the Linksys WRT610N can act as a media server which will be auto-detected by Windows Vista and some other universal plug and play capable software Any media files on the shared hard drive will be instantly acces-sible to your audio software!

Adding an Access Point

Chapter 1 pointed out that wireless waves don’t travel forever, especially

if dense objects like walls are in the way It’s possible that you’ve got some wireless dead spots in your network, or even a whole area such as an out-side workshop Moving your router around might help things out, but at some point you need a second access point

The general idea behind a second access point is that you plug it into your internal wired network and give it the same wireless settings as the router

If the radios are on two different channels, then your computer will pick which radio to associate with, based on signal strength If you roam from one radio’s space to the other, then your computer moves over to the other access point

That’s the theory, anyway In practice, I’ve found that the built-in Windows wireless software doesn’t do a great job here, and that you’re better off using your manufacturer’s software if you plan on roaming between wireless zones The worst case is that you have to reconnect when you move from one zone to the other

This is a very effective technique for expanding your network Your only requirements are an access point and a cable to go from wherever the access point is back to your Internet router

The trouble I’ve found with access points is that they’re hard to find I was at

an office supply store doing some research, and I found a dozen varieties of wireless routers, but no access points

Fear not! You’ll soon learn how to turn a router into a simple access point If you’re upgrading your router anyway, you can keep your old router to pro-vide lower-speed coverage to a different area of your place