fwiw WPA is the security most would use. One passphrase of 20 charatures is recommended by most to make it virtually unhackable. That security is to keep others out of your router or off your internet connection. Many people screw up writing down passphrases on paper and/or retyping it in. Can't connect complaints usually blaming it on other things are frequently solved by whoops, my passphrase was entered wrong. Copy & Paste passphase is virtually foolproof. But requires a bit of though. Dont push the OK button until you've pasted it onto notepad or something. WEP is ok, but there are programs Johnny Jr next door might use to gain access in a few minutes. One of those four WEP keys is designated the primary key with a bullet or check box... that checked key you would copy/paste into your computer for the passphrase or key. You're not going to be automatically given a key in your home. Maybe at work when login & security is handled off a server. When you do credit cards and other secrets online usually its on a secure web page and those web pages are encryped so mr bad guy & neighbor are not able to see anything except googlygoop.

Hi Mikie, I sure hope you or someone else knowledgable is around. I'm at my daughter's house. I entered the address (numbers from above) in the address bar on the PC and went through the set up and then re-booted the PC and re-brought up the browser. On the laptop, when I click on the wirless connections icon on the tool bar it shoulw the network is available. It also shows some others. It says the network requires a network key (WEP) and I entered the same one as I'd entered on the PC, and click connect and the box disappears. But when I bring up internet explorer, it says no connection. No matter what I do, and I've tried a bunch of things, I still get no connection on the browser on the PC. Please Help!! Thanks, Alice

Lynn, I now see more clearly what you're trying to do. It's much like setting up a network at home. When you're sharing internet with 2 or 3 computers, you'd be setting up a router (such as a Linksys) with wireless capability. First you'd need to setup the router with an encryption. The manual for Linksys has good instruction on how to set it up. This will only allows computers that share the same encryption number to be within the network and will keep the others away. The nearby computers will see the Linksys ID but will not be able to get into the network without the encryption number. Since you're the owner, you have the choice of who to give that encryption number to once you had it set up. This number can be changed at anytime you feel a threaten nearby. I normally use the Linksys auto encryption number because it uses a lengthy combination of letters (case sensitive) and numbers which makes it difficult to hack into. What Jane explained only works if you're not setting up a network. When you set up a network, regardless of whether you're using wireless or a cable, all 3 computers can still be seen if allowed to. Each individual computer within the same network can be set up so not to allow other computers to see it. The only thing they could see is a list of computer's name within the network. Windows have a network security feature in the Control Panel that allows you to set up what you want to share and what not. For example, all 3 of you may want to share the same printer and nothing else. As far as hacking, by setting up an uncrypted router (hardware firewall), you should be pretty safe. Plus, each individual computer should also have a firewall software installed. This is the 2nd protection. A professional hackar (or whatever you call him/her) would probably not interest in your type of business to go through the trouble of hacking into your network. Think of it as your home have an alarm system but your neighbor doesn't. Guess, which home the burglar would rather break into? As for within the network, if all 3 of you trust each others enough to share the cost of internet service, I don't see a reason for worrying with one of you hacking the other one's computer. Do you? If you do however, then, it's best not to share the internet service. You may want to set up a rule to let each others know right away when one of the computer is stolen. If that ever happens, change the encryption code right away to prevent the stolen computer entering into your network. Keep in mind that the your friend's computer won't be able neither until you provide them with the new code. Someone already mentioned, it's best to always set up a password and 'lock up' (not log off) the system whenever you're walking away from it for a few minutes. I know you probably already know some of these things. I just add the info in for other readers that may need it.

It could be a problem with your provider, or it could be the quality of the cabling that comes into the house. I really don't think it's our cable. As I said in my original post, we directly connected one of the computers to our cable modem for a few days. During those 3 days, we didn't have a single dropped connection. We also had great connections BEFORE we switched to the wireless router (we used to use a switch) as of 2 months ago. First off I would check the Event viewer - Start/Control panel/Administrative tools/Event viewer on all 3 machines and read and compare the red or yellow markers to see if there is anything there. Took a look -- nothing there coincided with any of our dropped connections in the past couple of days. As Jodi noted, disabling Zonealarm did not do the trick, removal cured it for me. I'm sorry, I just don't buy that ZoneAlarm could be causing this. I've looked at all the computers. It's actually only installed on one machine (my husband's). His computer isn't even running right now, and yet I've dropped my connection 3 times in the past 6 hours. How could ZoneAlarm on a machine that is not even turned on have anything to do with it? I'm concerned that it may be Mikie's suggestion -- interference from outside. If so, I'm not sure what we can do to resolve it.