Laptop and wireless network help please

[wolf_bluejay]

My usual recommendation is the simple one (IT by trade). Buy the cheapest laptop that fits what you need. 90% of the time, people buy these huge, heavy and short on battery life laptops because the sales guy talks them into it.

But of course, what do you need. Personally, i go for the small and long battery life laptops with tiny screens (I have and eee and acer asipre). But if you NEED more power, got for something a bit bigger. I find the Asus Eee 701 has just too small a keyboard for any real work. It does make a great "portable".
Generally, nobody uses the full power of a computer anymore, so buying a slower CPU means better battery life.

None of that matters if you are going to put it on a desk and leave it there. If you are doing that -- Really -- buy a desktop with a nice 22" LCD and full size keyboard.

As for the networking. 802.11g is the most common. And they are all compatible EXCEPT 802.11a. All laptops that you will find have at least 802.11g, so don't even worry about the wireless.

As for the WEP/WPA/WPA2 debate. Don't use WEP, everything else is Ok. I can break WEP is under 5 minutes.

Just don't listen to the sales guy telliing you that you will need HDTV outputs and all the other junk. Normally a good laptop should run you under $500, and a cheapy wireless router about $50-100.There really isn't much difference between routes, unless you get into the enterprise level stuff, and spending $1500 on a router with feature that you won't even know what they are is just silly.


Finally, windows vista is a PITA. And no, you can't by anything with XP from a big box store, and the store that still have XP (for corporate customer) charge a few hundred extra to get it. My advice -- download, or have mailed to you for free a "ubuntu" or "kubuntu" linux cd, and install that. Much nicer, simpler, and problem free. I have a few thousand machines running linux, and very few people have any problems with it.

[mark]

Originally Posted by wolf_bluejay

As for the WEP/WPA/WPA2 debate. Don't use WEP, everything else is Ok. I can break WEP is under 5 minutes.

Another security question

I'm sort of forced to use WEP for the kid's DS (WEP only) but enabled the MAC address filter on the router, any benefit?

[midgetwaiter]

The way the MAC filter works is by only accepting traffic from MACs on the allowed list, others would be ignored. It's easy to bypass because MACs can't be encrypted so all somebody has to do is listen in to the traffic for a while and pick an allowed MAC to assign to their device. So it's more of a hurdle than a fence if you get my meaning.

WEP and WPA can both be broken quickly once somebody has listened in long enough to get a sample of your traffic. That can take a while depending on how much the wireless link is used. WPA2 is secure for now but somebody will get it eventually.

Ultimately I don't think it matters much for the home user. Your biggest problem is the potential for somebody to use your access point without your permission. The idea of anyone spending the time it takes to breach your network is kind of absurd. What do you really have that makes it worth while?

WEP is probably good enough.