Someone come across a number of wireless headphones in the past, but have rarely been impressed by the sound quality they offer. However, Hauppage’s new XFones claim to offer cinema quality sound for just below $100.

The XFones come with a small USB transmitter that plugs into your computer, allowing it to transmit music or sound straight to the headphones. Installation is plug-and-play with no software required. Unfortunately, the Dolby Headphone feature that aims to reproduce surround sound DVD soundtracks on the headphones doesn’t work on the Mac.

Most current Mac models include an AirPort wireless card that supports the latest high speed 802.11n wireless format. However there are plenty of relatively recent Macs that shipped with older 802.11g card in them. You can upgrade your Mac’s wireless capabilities by installing Sonnet’s new Aria Extreme-n wireless card.

The Aria is the same size as Apple’s AirPort cards, so it can replace the AirPort card in most Mac models, such as the Mac mini or iMac. You’d need to be pretty brave to dismantle a Mini yourself, though, so the Aria is probably best suited to more upgradeable models such as the Mac Pro or MacBook Pro.

Wireless networking in Windows Vista has its own event log. All the events, whether informational, warnings, or errors, are written to an event log. From within Event Viewer, expand Application and Service Logs, expand Microsoft, expand Windows, expand WLAN-AutoConfig, and select the operational log.

This log is a great place to go when troubleshooting a wireless network problem if you need more information on what is happening.

Wireless networking is like a radio signal and as such is susceptible to the same problems. If you have a weak signal, you could have problems connecting to or staying connected to a wireless network. The following is a list of things to look for that could be causing a weak or no signal:


• The computer is too far away from an access point.
• There are a lot of walls between the system and the access point.
• There is electronic interference from another device such as a microwave or cordless phone.

To prevent these types of issues, always place WAPs in a central location away from devices that could interfere with the signal. Avoid placing your system near devices that could interfere. This may seem elementary, but these sorts of things are often overlooked when troubleshooting wireless problems.

You can troubleshoot the network components of wireless networking in Windows Vista in the same way that you troubleshoot a physical connection. All the same rules apply within the realm of wireless for IP address, DNS, DHCP, and so on. You will, however, have different issues that you may encounter during the initial establishment of the wireless connection.

If you are having a problem connecting to a wireless network, you must first look to these settings to isolate the problem:

SSID
If the SSID is broadcast by the wireless access point, it will be correctly configured in the connection settings. However, administrators often choose to not broadcast the SSID for security purposes. This means that you would have to know the SSID and enter it manually when setting up a connection to the wireless network. If this is the case, double-check the SSID that was entered during setup; if it is incorrect, you will be unable to communicate.

Security
You must be using the same type of security on the local system that is being used on the access point. An incorrect setting here means you will not be able to communicate with the network. If these settings are incorrect, you may see an error, in the Connect to a Network window that states the settings do not match.

Again, Windows Vista does a good job of matching these settings for a network it can see. If you manually set up the network or a user changes a setting, you will need to know what security type to configure in order to get the connection working. Additionally, the correct security type may be selected but another security setting may be incorrect. Also check to make sure that your passphrases, keys, and key indexes are correct where applicable.

WPA-Enterprise
If you are using WPA-Enterprise, remember that there is an authentication server of some type in the mix. Make sure that the user can connect to the server and that the firewall isn’t blocking this access. In addition, with WPA-Enterprise, you can use certificates for authentication.

You configure security on a wireless network by managing the properties for that wireless network connection. The pros, cons, and details of these various security methods are beyond the scope of this book; what is important is that you know how to configure Windows Vista to match the corresponding settings in use on your network. Managing wireless connection is done via the Manage Wireless Networks applet, which is available, like all other network applets in Windows Vista, via the Network and Sharing Center. To open the Manage Wireless Networks applet, first launch the Network and Sharing Center and then select Manage Wireless Networks from the task list on the left side of the screen.

Right-clicking on an available wireless network connection and selecting Properties opens the Wireless Network properties dialog box. To configure wireless security, select the Security tab. Depending on the type of security and encryption in use, you will see different options on this tab.

Wired Equivalent Privacy
WEP is part of the 802.11 standard and is a means of securing a wireless network. The purpose of WEP is to make the communication between the computer’s NIC and the access point more secure than that of a standard radio broadcast. If the access point you are connecting to is using WEP, you need to configure Windows Vista for WEP and provide the correct security key and key index. To do so, open the Manage Wireless Networks applet from the Network and Sharing Center, right-click the network you want to set up, select Properties, and then select the Security tab. To configure WEP, set Security Type to Shared and select WEP as the Encryption Type. Doing so displays the WEP options.

Read more »

Wireless networking has come on strong in the past few years. Wireless networking is defined by the IEEE 802.11 standard. Also known as Wi-Fi, 802.11 comes in three flavors: a, b, and g. The differences relate mainly to the operating frequency and the available bandwidth.

To utilize wireless networking in a permanent setting where a wireless network needs to exist full time, you need both a Wireless Access Point (WAP) and a wireless NIC in each computer. A wireless network that uses a WAP is known as an infrastructure network. All the devices must support the same standard of Wi-Fi; in other words, 802.11b NICs can only talk with 802.11b access points. It is not uncommon to find WAPs and wireless NICs that support multiple standards. When running in infrastructure mode, the WAP is hard-wired to the physical network. All wireless clients must connect to a WAP in order to communicate with other wired and wireless devices.

You can also create an ad hoc network using 802.11 wireless NICs. In an ad hoc network, several machines with wireless cards can communicate with one another without the use of an access point. Each machine in effect acts as both an access point and as a client. Ad hoc networks are great for small meetings or for transferring large files from one machine to another in an area where a network connection is unavailable.

Read more »