Easy Wireless Networking

After an attempt at networking our home computers a few years back, I had turned up my nose up at wireless networking. Our first attempt was with a Linksys wireless router a few years back that ended up being returned to the store. At that time, there were only two computers in the house, one host and one "guest." Sometimes the guest was able to get online and other times not - most times not. It was always a question, it seemed, of if the "conditions" were right. And the rooms that had these computers were on the same floor, two doors apart, in a straight line. At that time, I was advised to return the router and get a hard-wired one and I would never have the unreliability that comes with wireless as it was new technology at the time and had not been perfected yet.
I did go out and purchase a Linksys Ethernet Cable/DSL 4-port router, hard-wired the computer to it and, lo and behold, it worked every time, no problems. Then when we added two more computers to the network and hard-wired them to the router, they, too, never experienced one day of problems with either connectivity or sharing files and printers.
Well, my son got a laptop recently and wanted to add it to the network and have the ability to go online. He went out, much to my dismay, and bought the D-Link DI-624 wireless router. I was horrified at the thought of going backwards, or so I thought, to a wireless game of Russian roulette with our connectivity/sharing issues. But he did his homework and it turned out, I couldn't have been more wrong. I have to tell you that all we had to do was plug it in and let Windows XP do the rest. There wasn't one problem from day one. The only thing we are having a bit of trouble with now is, we keep getting a message every now and then that say the network connection is unplugged; however, we think that is due to the fact that the router has to be kept under my desk (mine being the host computer) due to a short cable from one of the other computers that is still wired into the router. But other than that, it is fast, efficient and oh so easy to install and use.
If you've never networked, don't be afraid to give this router a try. It won't be going back to the store. I believe the average cost is about $79, although we ended up getting a $20 rebate. So $59 is a great price for a reliable wireless network. The support is quick, too, if you need any questions answered. It's not like with Linksys where sometimes you'd actually have to leave a message to get a return call hours later from their tech support team. D-Link won't, however, give you any help with file sharing or anything of that nature, just the ability to connect to the Internet with the router.
Good luck and happy networking!!!