[Techtalk] Networking options

[Andrew]

Hello Berenice,

	I vote wireless, You can find 802.11b pmcia cards and PCI adapters, the
pair, on E-bay for about $40 (US) for each set or $80 for the whole (4
pcs) thing. If you look arond there are PCI-wireless cards on  e-bay for
sale (a possibly less expensive route requireing only two card), where
the PMCIA card is not needed. I saw, in my search, ISA cards for very
low prices. Mandrake 8.2 supports a large number of PCI wireless
cards(with or without pmcia), 8.0 was less supported in wireless. You
would need a good bit Linux of experience to use the ISA cards.
	Your actual throughput would be about 3.5 mps, a good amount of
bandwidth for a small network. That would allow you a highspeed,
broadband connection to the internet and to serve your printer and more
at the same time. A wired connection is somewhat less expensive but more
effort and less convenient. The walls in your house should pose no
problem/restriction until the signal goes through the Bathroom.
Depending on where the water supply pipes are they may block some of the
signal in ether direction. All that means is you might need to move the
boxes more toward the doors in your drawing. Imagine the walls do not
exist and you want to shine a bright light from your room toward your
sister and she wants to shine a bright light from her room to you. The
only thing blocking the light would be the water pipes, that is how
802.11.b (wifi) works. Metal doors, refridgerators, steel studs, in the
walls affect the signal  a little. You drawing indicates you should have
very little signal problem and moving the boxes would cure any problem
you have. So I vote wireless.

	Andrew