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.

For a $10 difference, I would definitely got for 3 mbps. If you've been on dialup, even 1 mbps will seem phenomenal, but e mbps takes it to a different level. One thing to keep in mind about digital phone service is that if the power goes out, you lose the phone. If you've got a cell phone, it's less of an issue. Personally, if I were going to drop my landline, I'd probably use Skype as my computer based service and use my cell as backup. Skype is free for PC to PC calls, and you can get unlimited in and out bound calls to the US and Canada for a few $ a month. One drawback is that it doesn't do 911. If you already have a router and ethernet cables connecting the computers, it will probably work just fine with the cable modem. You may need to make some configuration changes in the router, but that depends on how the connection with the cable modem works (varies by cable company). It should be fairly easy and either the cable company tech support or the router company tech support should be able to help. The cable company may even include that as part of the installation. In some cases, all they'll do is connect one PC and make sure it works, but they may be willing to connect the router. If not, you'll probably just need to connect the router instead of the PC, but there's a possibility that you'll need to change the IP range that the router assigns. You're probably either using 10.x.x.x or 192.168.x.x. If you're using 10.x.x.x and the cable modem has that as its outbound IP, you'll probably have to configure the router to assign 192.168.x.x (or the other way around if the cable modem and the router are both using 192.168.x.x). Another thing that may require a change is logging in. Some cable modems are designed to log in to the ISP and the login information is in the cable modem. In other cases, it's done by the PC (or other device that connects to it). In that case, you'd need to configure the router to log in. I think that if you and your husband were able to figure out how to configure the router and set up your network at home, you should be able to reconfigure it if necessary. It's only a little more involved.

zep et. al.: Sorry I didn't get back sooner but with my limited experience, I was a little leary of doing the uninstall of network adapter. However I finally realized that at worst it would only mess up the laptop and not the other devices that are connected and working on the secured network. So: I just uninstalled and rebooted. The adapter did reinstall but I am still not getting a proper connection although things have slightly changed. The secured network got connected, but did not even ask for the security password and simply went to 'validating identity' and simply hung. It didn't even time out. I checked firefox to see if it was expecting a password there, as was the initial case to get connected to the Guest Network (where I am again now), but it couldn't find the server. You may recall, that previously the issue was that the secured net would ask for the password, but find it unacceptable and give 'limited or no connectivity. Is there a way to force the network to ask for the password?? Any other ideas? Eventually, I will probably find a way to get a knowledgeable person out to my house where they could diagnose this. FYI, I am creating another post about security updates that may tangentially be connected to this thread. I apparently successfully installed sp3 but 'security update' keeps wanting to install it AGAIN! I was worried I might not be able to shut down to reload the adapter, but I was able to cancel the update.

Your router should have a manual of some sort that tells you step by step how to set up and connect to your network. Just installing something from a CD does not set up the network. Your router must be connected correctly to your PC to work properly. My XP computer has in Control Panel a wireless network setup wizard. You could try that if no instructions came with your router.