Wireless networking has been in the mainstream for the last few years, it's appeal is the flexibility it offers in terms of no wires, being able to connect to the internet from literally anywhere in your house, garden or where the range of the wireless router/modem permits a decent enough signal.

So how can we connect to the internet wirelessly? A wireless network needs to have two components a Wireless modem or router to share the web connection, a wireless network card in your desktop or laptop computer. Just about every new laptop has a wireless mini PCI network card built in, which will support both 802.11b and the faster 802.11g networks.

But what if you have an older laptop that does not have a wireless network card built in?

There is a huge range of wireless network cards around to give most laptops wireless compatibility. The best choice is the mini PCI internal wifi card, the biggest advantage offered by this type of wifi card is it being installed internally, no aerial or anything else sticking out. check online or contact us to find out if your laptop will take one of these types of cards.

The USB wireless type or dongle is perhaps the most common as its just a case on installing its software plugging in the dongle and you are pretty much ready to go The big advantage of this type of network card is the ease of installation, but on the downside it means you will need to remove it if you ever travel and they do have a habit of getting knocked if your limited by your USB ports, this type of network card is suitable for desktop and laptop computers, just make sure your computer has USB type 2 ports or you might find it too slow.

If your using a desktop computer, the most common type for you is a PCI wireless card, you will need to install the cards software, power off the computer, open up your computer to install the card, but it really is just a case of remove the case removing the blanking plate fitting the card and putting the case back on, once done power on and it will install itself.

The final type of wireless card is the PCMCIA type, just about every laptop has a PCMCIA port or 2, which in 99.9% of laptops is unused (PCMCIA ports are the long thin horizontal ports usually in the side of a laptop) so if your short on USB ports or your computer only has USB type 1 then this would be a good choice for you as these ports are usually redundant.

There is now a real abundance of wireless network cards on the market and as such this has really pushed down prices, decent cards can now be picked up for less than 20 pounds, when I mention decent I mean a card using the faster 802.11g and not the much slower 802.11b

Installing

When installing a wifi network card, make sure that you read the manuals prior to installing, most cards need to have the software installed before the wifi card is connected or plugged in, otherwise the software drivers may fail to load or Windows will attempt to locate a driver from elsewhere, giving driver or configuration issues which can be a hard to resolve it may mean removing the card again.

Now your ready to connect, you should see a pop-up at the bottom right of the screen when a wireless network is in range of the card, click on the pop-up and you'll be able enter your pass key (if you have one set ) to connect to your wireless network.

Notes

Only use wireless networks your familiar with, especially if you need to disclose credit card details for any reason. If you setup your own wireless network you must ensure that you implement some form of ecurity, if your router is not protected, not only could anyone simply browse from your Wireless network, but if so inclined could be much more malicious, performing such actions as changing your routers password, preventing you from accessing your own internet, they can also see any computers or devices attached to your router and may try to gain access to these.

Its imperative to make sure any wireless connections are secure, check out more articles on Wireless security, plus much more at So please make sure any wireless connections are secure, feel free to checkout more on Wireless security, plus all of our other articles at