Wireless Network Hacks and Mods for Dummies

So what do you do once you have your wireless router plugged in and your laptop connected to the internet via the airwaves? What more *can* you do, and what if you want to venture beyond the basics? A lot of that is covered pretty well in the book Wireless Network Hacks & Mods For Dummies by Danny Briere and Pat Hurley. Contents: Part 1 - Making Your World Wireless: Wireless Inside Everything!; Wireless Network Basics; Wireless LAN Infrastructure; Wi-Fi and Broadband Connections Part 2 - Boosting Performance on Your Wireless Network: Combining Wired and Wireless Networks; Better Living Through Network Monitoring; Boosting Signal Strength Where You Need It; Staying Safe in the Wireless World Part 3 - Wireless on the Go: On the Road Again with 802.11; Staying Safe on Any Wireless Network; Outfitting Your Car with Wireless; Operating Your Own Hot Spot Part 4 - Cool Wireless Toys: Building a Wireless Audio Network; Wirelessly Securing, Monitoring, and Automating Your Home; It's Your Dime - IP Calls and Your Wireless Network; That's Not All - Other Cool Wireless Toys Part 5 - The Part of Tens: (Almost) Ten Sites for Advanced Wireless Topics; Top Ten Wi-Fi Security Questions; Index It seemed like (at least to me) getting connected wirelessly used to be more art than science. Now it's pretty easy, and it doesn't take much to make a connection anywhere you happen to be these days. But there's a lot more you can do with wireless technology that perhaps you haven't thought of. For instance, the authors talk about GPS units and how they can connect wirelessly to services to enable you to track your car's location. Given I have a son with diabetes, that's a possibility I plan on exploring so I can sleep better at night. Or let's say that you are a music lover and you want to listen to your tunes all over the house. Using wireless networking, you could set up a wireless jukebox and listen anywhere. Perhaps you're the altruistic type and you just want to share your connectivity with others who need it. There's a *lot* of information in here on how best to do that, both from a security and a technical perspective. Add all that to some very understandable writing on the underlying technologies behind wireless (like 802.11a/b/g, WEP/WPA/WPA2, etc.), and you have a useful and solid book. Any time I read a title that talks about hacks and mods, I realize that not everything will be applicable or even interesting to me. But if I can come away with a handful of ideas and tips to use and explore, it's worth the read. This book meets that criteria...

If you're thinking about setting up a wireless LAN, you would have to go a long way to find a better book than this one to use as a reference for what you can do with the LAN, the equipment that is available, and how to go about setting it up. This includes everthing from the interface adapters to the access points, hubs, routers and so on. This may sound strange, but I'd suggest that you read the last chapter first. It's title is 'Top Ten Wi-Fi Security Questions.' Wireless means radio is used for transmitting the data. Radio means that this is being broadcast between the various devices. Someone outside your immediate area, can scan and detect your radios signals that are carrying your data. You can make your LAN secure, but reading this chapter first gives you a good introduction that will help you as you read the rest of the book. This is a new book. It includes a lot of the newest toys like the cell phone sized Wi-Fi phone. They also cover digital cameras, security devices, all kinds of things that you may not have thought of initially.