We know what 802.11 means, as explained in part one, so then what do the letters g and n mean? A wireless access point (Router) using the g standard transmits bandwidth at 54 megabits per second (Mbps) using the 2.4 Ghz frequency. This basically means that you’ll get a fast connection to your wireless router, which is connected directly to the modem, that will transmit through walls with a range of 80 to 120 meters, dependent on the thickness and material of the obstacle. A signal will pass through drywall a lot easier than stone or brick. What this means in your home is that one access point should transmit a signal to every room - unless you live on the Neverland Ranch, or in a cave.

The more common standard you’ll find today is the n standard. As with the previous standards, n improves on g with a 74 Mbps transfer rate, double the range of the g standard and a signal more resistant to interference. You’ll also notice that the n standard routers have more than one antenna. This is called MIMO technology, which basically means “hey look, two antennas! Lets use both and double the signal strength!”.

The term Bluetooth is everywhere, so I thought I’d write a brief paragraph about it as well. Bluetooth won’t be involved in your basic wireless network setup. It’s used mainly for hand-held devices, like PDAs, GPS’, mobile phones and similar gadgets. You get the idea. Bluetooth supports a very short range, about 12 meters. It uses a very low frequency to save battery power. Obviously, with such a short range, Bluetooth is not very useful in a wireless network configuration, where the goal is to be able to place a wireless router in the den upstairs and still have an internet connection while you’re sitting outside on your deck.

So now that you have a basic understanding of all the technical jargon regarding the standards and terminology, lets put it all together! Here’s what you’ll need to do to setup the hardware and get your computers connected. For this walk-through we’re going to assume that you have cable internet, a wireless router, a desktop computer that you’ll be connecting with a network cable and a laptop that you’ll connect wirelessly to the access point. This will be your home wireless network. Very basic, yet this is the setup you’ll find most often in the average consumer’s home.

It is ideal that you place your Router in a central location. If you setup your Router on the top floor, you may not have a good signal if you use your laptop in your basement. Of course, in this scenario you have a desktop PC without a wireless network card that you’re connecting physically to the router, so you may not have the luxury of placing it wherever you want. Just make sure you place it on a desk, so the dog doesn’t eat it.

To begin the installation, unplug the power to your broadband modem, turning it off. Plug in the power to your wireless router and the Ethernet cable from your modem into the uplink port on your router. This port is often labeled Internet, WAN, WLAN or something similar. The other ports on your router (usually 4) are used with direct Ethernet connections. Plug the Ethernet cable from your desktop computer into one of the free ports on your router. Plug the power back into your broadband modem. After about 20 seconds you should see a row of flashing lights on the modem, as well as the router. The router picks up the IP from the modem, provided by your ISP.

If your computer was previously plugged directly into the broadband modem, you may need to reboot your machine, or open a command window and type ipconfig /release, then ipconfig /renew once the first command is complete. This will drop the IP currently used by your system and fetch a new one through the router. This may not be necessary, but I’ve found that at times it will fix connection problems.

Once the process above is complete, open a browser window on your computer connected physically to the wireless router and type in the router’s IP address. The handy table below shows the default router IPs, usernames and passwords for common router manufacturers. If you can get to the router’s configuration page, you should be good-to-go. In the next chapter we’ll explain how to configure your router for your new wireless network.

Router	IP	Username	Password
3Com	192.168.1.1	admin	admin
D-Link	192.168.0.1	admin
Linksys	192.168.1.1	admin	admin
Microsoft Broadband	192.168.2.1	admin	admin
Netgear	192.168.0.1	admin	password

You should be able to reach an external web page automatically on your PC (just type http://cnn.com or http://yahoo.com into your browser) without changing any settings on the router. If you have special browser connection settings specified, however, you may need to adjust those. Congratulations, your wireless router should be connected and functional at this point. In article 3 we’ll go over the process of setting up your wireless network.

See other articles in this series:
Part One

I do have a couple more gripes, now that I think about it. First, browsing is slow as molasses. Pages show well, but waiting for them to load is annoying. I suppose this may be due to the fact that the current iPhone uses the G2 network. In 2008, Apple will be releasing a version of the phone which uses the G3 network. Could this be the iPhone 2.0? I haven’t heard anything else about it, but the way Apple is spitting out quality gadgets, I expect the iJesus 2.0 to double as a fully functional GPS and eBook reader, control my garage door, work my home theater and walk my dog.

I’m also not very pleased with the fact that Apple is so adamant about restricting third party applications. I can understand disallowing their phone to work on other networks aside from AT&T, but I see no reason why vendors aren’t allowed to create applications for the iPhone. Aside from these inconveniences, however, I think the iPhone is the best gadget released in 2007 - hands down. It’s set the bar for future mobile phones. It’s a high bar, but with the speed by which mobile technology is advancing, I’m sure something comparable will hit the market in 2008. In fact, it might already have. The LG Voyager from Verizon looks like a iPhone clone with it’s own unique qualities. Expect a review of the Voyager shortly.

The Witcher by Bioware and Atari incorporates the best of the qualifications I mentioned above and wraps it all into a single player RPG that’s easy to play, yet complex enough to offer a challenge, sports beautiful graphics with extremely detailed models, entertaining cinematics, fluid combat maneuvers and magical effects, as well as a concept and story line that I haven’t seen anywhere else.

Character progress is measured in levels. Every level you’re allotted points to distribute between core abilities (strength, dexterity, stamina and intelligence), which offer bonuses and special traits for other abilities, and/or magical “signs” and fighting styles. You determine what role your character will play in combat by how you assign your progression points.

One thing to note is that this game is not for children. Aside from it’s dark tone, there’s adult content that wouldn’t be suitable for kids. Geralt, your hero, has slept with three different women in the course of my playing thus far. The game cuts to a blurry cinematic sequence when your character has an encounter. It’s not pornographic, but it’s still not something you would find in most RPGs. Characters in The Witcher curse. I’ve heard sh**, bit** and fu** so far in the course of play. Since all sequences are cinematic, you hear it all as well as see it in the subtitles. This doesn’t bother me, but again for children it may be too much.

Playing The Game

In The Witcher, you play a genetically enhanced mutant, a magically inclined monster hunter - a Witcher. You begin the game with amnesia, which is a little cliché, but it fits. You’re found unconscious in the wild and taken to the Witcher castle, which is subsequently attacked and ransacked. You triumph over the bandits and set out to find the cause of the attack. This is when Chapter 1 begins. There’s a good two hours of play before you begin the actual game. As of this writing I have just started on the second chapter, and already I’ve spend a good 5 hours on this game.

Combat is not haphazard like other non turn-based RPGs. You click on opponents to attack, but clicking too fast may actually cancels your offense. You have to wait for the cursor to change icons before you can execute more advanced tactics in combat. This is a good thing, because it means the game doesn’t turn into a click fest - think Diablo. Your forefinger will never get tired while play The Witcher. You can easily pause the game and queue potions to drink, change fighting styles and select signs, which again means you’re not in a frenzy to click icons in combat. Geralt can perform a coup de grace on stunned or immobile opponents, which is a lot of fun to watch. He’ll hop on top of an opponent and slice his sword down through his/it’s head, decapitate the opponent, sever limbs, slit throats and other novelties. You see your character do this, rather than read it in subtitles. This feature makes combat seem very real and makes you feel a little bit like god when fighting lesser combatants.

Fighting styles are chosen during combat and should be selected for the appropriate opponent. One is useful against single powerful opponents, another is used when facing off against smaller, more agile enemies and the last is used when facing groups of lesser foes. The last is a brilliant concept. It saves a lot of time when you need to plow through an army of smaller opponents, rather than clicking on each one individually. Fighting styles are different for steel and silver weapons. Silver is best used on monsters and incorporeals, while steel should be used on humanoids and animals. This is one aspect of the game I didn’t like. It would have been less complicated to use the same fighting styles with both types of weapons.

That’s all I can say about the game at this point. I’ll modify this post or post a follow-up once I complete the game. All-in-all, this is a superior single player RPG and one worth picking up. I would recommend a decent system for this game, however. It would be a shame to lose the ambiance if you were forced to play The Witcher on older hardware with mediocre graphics.

1. What you’ll need to setup a wireless network (the part you’re reading now).
2. What the standards mean and how to physically setup the wireless network.
3. How to configure your wireless network once it’s been setup.

We’ll be practical here. I’m not going to bore you by going into detail about the out-dated wireless standards. You don’t want to know about old technology that you can’t buy anymore. Saying that, I will give you a single paragraph rundown on the origin of the terms IEEE and 802.11, because you’ll see them throughout this three-part article.

What do the terms IEEE and 802.11 mean?

The incremental wireless standards are designated by a letter (e.g. b, g, n) after the numbers 802.11. It’s called 802.11 because that was the name of the group formed to create the standard. You’ll see the acronym IEEE as well, which means ‘Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers’ - the organization that ultimately oversaw the 802.11 group and the creation of the wireless standard. The average consumer doesn’t need to know anything more than that. Pretty straight-forward, no?

Shopping for your wireless network.

Now, lets talk about what you’ll find when you shop for a wireless router. We’ll start with what you’ll need to setup a wireless network in your home - the basics. First, you’ll need a wireless router. There are plenty of makes and models, but generally they do the same thing. I won’t get into which is best, but I’ll tell you what I use. My wireless router is made by D-Link, using the ‘n’ standard (more on standards later). The other major router manufacturers are NetGear, Linksys, Buffalo, Belkin and TRENDnet. Like I said though, they all do generally the same thing. Don’t worry too much about the brand.

The next piece of equipment you’ll need (or won’t need) depends entirely on the computers you’re going to be connecting to your new WLAN. If you’ll be connecting a laptop, chances are you won’t need any additional hardware for it, unless your laptop is more than 5 years old (in which case I’d suggest using it as a door-stop or anti-theft device, instead of a computer). Laptops come with built-in wireless NICs (network interface cards), so chances are you won’t need to buy anything additional.

If you have a PC, you can either connect it wirelessly, or if it’s in close proximity to the wireless router, you can use a network cable and plug it directly into the back of the device. If it’s not close to the router, you’ll need to purchase a wireless NIC. The brand doesn’t absolutely need to be the same as the router, though I’d recommend it for compatibility sake. What you do have to watch for, however, is that the wireless NIC and the wireless router share the same standard. Most likely this will be ‘n’ or ‘g’. Routers and wireless NICs are usually backwards-compatible. Meaning, they’ll work on both standards (and previous standards as well).

You will need at least one network cable. This will be used to connect your router to whatever broadband device you’re using (cable or DSL modem). You’ll need a second cable if you want to connect your PC directly to the router. That’s all as far as hardware goes. Just two - possibly three - pieces of hardware. It doesn’t cost much to setup a WLAN. As I described above, the next article will be focused on the current Wi-Fi standards and what they mean. We’ll get a little more technical there.

See other articles in this series:
Part Two

After almost 3 years in the World of Warcraft, with it’s cartoon-like character models, large-scale guild gatherings (demanding 40 or more people to work in cohesion to complete an objective, which ultimately was the biggest timesink) and never-ending character development (in other words, wasting 8 hours trying to get some kind of item), my interest in the game slowly subsided. I dropped it completely for a while, only to pick it back up for another stint and, as it seems now, drop it again - for good this time. In total, I spent approximately 150 days playing World of Warcraft. That’s full days, one day being 24 hours, or 3600 hours in total. Granted this was over a 3-year period, but that doesn’t change the fact that this game ate about 3.5 entire months of my young life.

Now that you know the potential this game has for turning a normal, sociable individual into a complete recluse, let me highlight one of the (possibly the only) positive aspects of the World of Warcraft. The game forces the players to make friends. Of course, you’re not playing face-to-face with the people you meet online (unless you could somehow get the 10s of millions of people playing this game together in a large stadium - or small country) but it does promote a sense of unity and loyalty with other gamers you see regularly within the game. Friendships established through online gaming can potentially extend beyond the life of the game, as was the case with my old Everquest guild. Althought, I ended up losing contact with them. Otherwise, the only benefit is that you don’t need a top-of-the-line monster gaming machine to run WoW. The graphics are designed to display smoothly on lower-end PCs.

Now for the bad. My list of negatives associated with MMO gaming is a lot longer than the positives. The major negative, as I explained above, is the amount of time the average gamer spends online. My 3600 hour marathon isn’t uncommon for a lot of people. With millions of gamers playing WoW, that’s a lot of wasted time! The anonymity of playing a game online, where everyone is faceless and the consequences of treating other gamers poorly are almost non-existent, makes some people do or say things they probably wouldn’t in real life. Some games, this one in-particular, have policies punishing players who make derogatory and insulting comments toward other gamers, but unless the offense is particularly nasty (racist or sexual) there’s usually no repercussion.

Sometimes online, the lines of what’s right and wrong are blurred. Due to the amount of time gamers spend in the virtual world, they tend to take the game too seriously. In Everquest, where there were two factions which were able to attack and kill each other, the good side were referred to by the players as Lighties, while the other (evil) side were known as Darkies. To me, that seemed to have a racist slant. Trash-talking was common in Everquest. One thing I liked about WoW - members of opposing factions couldn’t speak to one another (which I’m sure prevented a lot of problems).

That’s the World of Warcraft explained from the perspective of an ex-addict. I mainly discussed my issues with the game (and that pretty much applies to the whole genre). If you want to know more about the mechanics of the game, I suggest you visit the Word of Warcraft website. There are more games to be released in the near future that I may decide to check out but due to my experiences with WoW (and Everquest), I will always be more in-control of my digital addiction in the future. I had to learn how to delegate my time the hard way. The 10s of millions of current WoW subscribers will need to learn the same lesson eventually as well!