[Techtalk] taking the wireless plunge

[Rudy L. Zijlstra]

Maria Blackmore wrote:

>On Sun, 22 Jun 2003, Carla Schroder wrote:
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>>Ok techtalkers, I have a plan. It seems simple and foolproof. I have a
>>shiny new Thinkpad R32 with built-in 802.11b.
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>oooooooo
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>TOY!
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You can say so again.

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>>According to my research so far, all I need to connect it to my LAN is
>>plug an access point into the hub. Seems to me any low-budget AP such
>>as D-Link or Netgear, with a Web-based configurator, ought to work.
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>Most probably, yes.
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Hmm, things have improved, but I still remember the remarks from a 
collegue from a different company. This company wanted to install 
wireless and went about testing interoperability. They had some funny 
results. Not so funny though if you already have bought the stuff and 
find you have a mismatch -> resulting in bad performance to no performance.

I would first figure out what chipset is used in the Thinkpad, than go 
as Maria suggested with a wireless card using the same chipset.

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>>The devilish details of drivers for Linux aside, it seems simple enough. 
>>Thoughts?
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>I think Security is good.
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>>Notions?
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>You may find it cheaper and more secure if you have a server already that
>you can put a PCI based wireless card in.  This means you can completely
>seperate the wireless portion from the rest of your lan, and also force it
>so that the only thing that gets access to anything is the hardware
>address of your thinkpad, 
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This can be forced on an access point as well

>and that anything it does either happens through
>IPSEC or ssh. 
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Yup! I suggest using IPSEC.

> It also means you'll be able to attach an antenna to it
>more easily so that you can go and laze around your garden with your
>thinkpad :)
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Provided you have one with an antenna connection. Mine doesn't.

>>Random puns?
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>uhm
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>can't think of any right now
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>Maria
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Rudy