HELP! Leo. If you would be good enough to look here http://www.usr.com/support/doc-popup...s-security.htm you will get a window called Support.

I have got as far as item 4 where it says

simple enough but I don’t have the USRobotics Wireless Card Configeration Utillity in the lower left-hand corner. Just dawned on me that may be because this PC does not have a wireless card and I should be working on the Laptop – is that right? Have a loss of confidence now. :smt022

yes you pc should have a wireless card in it and it dosn't have to be us robotics one.

One like this But it dosn't have to be a US robotics one you can stll do it.

With your laptop you will need to configure that to use wirelessly

The other bit to how far you got to you would have to do that no matter what wireless card you put in your system even with your laptop.

Hi Leo, think I may be misleading you my set up consists of the following:-

Jackie’s PC – a Shuttle with no wireless card but connected to the Robotics via Ethernet – it is working ok receiving the Internet and sending work to –

Laptop – an Acer that does have a wireless card and is already connected to the Internet via the Robotics and can receive the work I send to it.

Alan’s PC is dedicated to editing videos and is not connected to the ‘network’ and there is no requirement for it to be so.

Now I need to know does Jackie’s PC need a wireless card in order to make the network secure and if so will a USB thingy do or do I need to fit an internal one?

Yes to wireless if you want it to be wireless. Also the USB adapter will do but his will put your cpu under more strain as all USB add on's do.

The wireless card in your Laptop will need to be encrypted to be able to communicate with Jackie's PC when that is encrypted

Since your doing Jackies PC why not Alans one at the same time if you get one for his then of course it will have internet access but also it will be on your network and be able to share files with the Laptop & Jackies PC of course this your choice cause it's no harder doing 3 than 2 you just got to do one more.
If all the systems are networked together you could do some work on your system send it to the Laptop or Alan's PC and vice versa all so he could print stuff off if you put your printer in your network as well but he needs to be on the network.

This is because your wireless router is broadcasting something called it's SSID. You needed this when you first linked your laptop to the router. It probably says 'USRRobotics' in the router's wireless configuration - this will be the default name used by all USR wireless routers.

The Belkin routers probably have Belkin as their SSID, the Netgear ones, 'Netgear' and the Linksys ones 'Linksys'

In order to maximise security, change the SSID name (the longer the name, the better), re-associate the other PCs/Laptops with the new SSID and then TURN OFF the SSID. With the SSID turned off, your home network should not show up in your neighbours list.

Although it doesn't show up, it doesn't mean that they can't get to it. However, with a changed SSID, it will be harder for them to get in - especially if you encrypt your connection. This is because they have to guess both the SSID and then the passcode required to access the network.

If you make the SSID something long containing a name (mix of upper and lower case) along with a 8-digit date of birth

eg Peanut12081998

it will be very hard for them to guess (if it is turned off).