[Mac_crypto] The Wireless Networking Starter Kit - from Adam Engst
R. A. Hettinga
mac_crypto@vmeng.com
Tue, 17 Dec 2002 10:54:23 -0500
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Status: RO
Date: Tue, 17 Dec 2002 14:11:04 +0000
To: usual@espace.net
From: Fearghas McKay <fm@st-kilda.org>
Subject: The Wireless Networking Starter Kit - from Adam Engst
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The Wireless Networking Starter Kit
-----------------------------------
by Adam C. Engst <ace@tidbits.com>
At the beginning of 2002 in TidBITS-612_, I wrote "Peering Into
2002's Tea Leaves," an article that made some general predictions
about which topics would garner the most attention this year. In
it I said, "it's clear that 2002 will be another step on the
ascendence of 802.11 wireless networking." It's somewhat ironic
that while I can certainly move that prediction into the "Win"
column, at the time I had no idea how involved I'd become with
wireless networking later in the year by co-authoring my just-
released book, The Wireless Networking Starter Kit (Peachpit
Press, ISBN 0321174089).
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=06688>
<http://wireless-starter-kit.com/>
Late one night at MacHack in June of 2002, I was talking about
book ideas with my friend Richard Ford, who used to be the Open
Transport product manager at Apple and is now a product manager in
charge of the PacketShaper network management device at Packeteer.
I'd recently finished my iPhoto Visual QuickStart Guide, and we
were sitting in the lobby of the MacHack hotel with our laptops
connected to the Internet via the wireless network that was being
shared at all hours of the day and night by nearly every attendee
of the conference. Given the way wireless networking had become
ubiquitous at MacHack, Richard made a suggestion bordering on the
painfully obvious - that my next book should be about wireless
networking.
He had a point. In fact, MacHack was the second of three
conferences around that time where wireless networking played a
major role. A month earlier, aboard ship on the MacMania Geek
Cruise, most of the speakers and a number of the conference
attendees gathered each night in the ship's library to soak up
the 2.4 GHz radio waves and surf the Web while chatting with one
another. And a month after MacHack, at Macworld Expo in New York,
I broke one of my cardinal rules of trade shows and carried my
iBook on the show floor every day, since it was so much easier to
check email via one of the many accessible wireless networks at
the Javits Convention Center than via phone from my room at the
Paramount Hotel.
So when Nancy Ruenzel, Peachpit's publisher, asked me at Macworld
Expo in July what book I'd like to write next (publishers love to
ask that, and I've learned it's best to be ready either with a
proposal or a good excuse), I floated the idea of a book about
wireless networking that I would co-author with my friend Glenn
Fleishman, who was making a name for himself as the publisher of
the popular 802.11b Networking News weblog. As soon as I mentioned
wireless networking, Nancy launched into a story about how she was
having trouble setting up an AirPort Base Station to work with her
husband's PowerBook and... Clearly the book was a go.
<http://80211b.weblogger.com/>
**Why Wireless?** Seeing a lot of people using wireless networking
wasn't sufficient reason to write a book about the topic. The most
important fact about wireless networking, from my point of view,
was that it is utterly cool. Even though I've had a wireless
network in the house from just a few months after Apple introduced
their AirPort technology, I still get that little thrill of "Wow,
this is neat!" every time I use my iBook to access the Internet
via a wireless network, either at home or on the road. I'm also
reminded of it every time I come up the driveway and see the 24 dB
parabolic antenna attached to the side of our house, since it
makes it possible for me to pick up a 1 Mbps Internet connection
from several miles away. And the news stories that Glenn covers
in his weblog every day run the range from soap opera (Intel, AT&T,
and IBM backing a startup called Cometa that intends to install
thousands of public wireless hot spots across the country by 2004)
to science fiction (Vivato's phased-array smart antenna, which
promises to increase the range of wireless networks to entire
buildings or portions of a city). It's an exciting world.
<http://www.google.com/custom?q=Cometa&sitesearch=80211b.weblogger.com>
<http://www.google.com/custom?q=Vivato&sitesearch=80211b.weblogger.com>
But I find lots of technologies cool, and you don't see me writing
a book about how to use a TiVo, for instance. What sealed my
decision to write the book is that wireless networking is easy
enough to attract users, but suffers from plenty of gotchas that
can make even people experienced with computer networks want to
pull their hair out. It might be easy to connect your Titanium
PowerBook G4 to your AirPort Base Station, but getting it all to
communicate via your cable modem is another story. And why can't
you pick up the signal from the kitchen table, whereas your next
door neighbors have no trouble accessing it and sharing your
Internet connection, even when you don't want them to? And after
you locked down your network with a password, why doesn't that
password work for your sister when she visits with her PC laptop?
**How Does It Help?** Not since I wrote Internet Starter Kit for
Macintosh back in 1993 did I feel that I had an opportunity to
help so many people. And that, more than anything else, is why I
drive myself for weeks or months to add writing and editing a book
to all the other work I do. Here's a look at how each chapter can
help anyone who wants to understand, use, create, expand, or
improve wireless networks.
* Chapter 1 is an introduction to what's neat about wireless
networking to help readers get as jazzed about the topic as Glenn
and I are. It's also a good set of stories that can help convince
your spouse, parents, office mates, or CEO that there's utility in
adding a wireless network for your personal or professional life.
* Chapter 2 barely touches on wireless networking, but instead
provides a crash course in the basics of traditional wired
networking. Understanding how networks work makes troubleshooting
much easier, not to mention the fact that setting up a wireless
network still requires a good deal of traditional networking to
connect your gateway to your Internet connection and to older
computers.
* Chapter 3 looks at how wireless networks actually work, from the
basics of radios to the hardware you'll need to set up and connect
to wireless networks using different types of computers.
* Chapter 4 offers step-by-step instructions on how to configure
your computer to connect to existing wireless networks. We cover
both Windows and Macintosh in this chapter (and throughout the
entire book) because wireless networking isn't just platform
agnostic, it's also a great way to connect the PC laptop the
office gave you with your iMac at home.
* Chapter 5 provides similar step-by-step instructions on how to
set up an entire wireless network, but also gives you a detailed
approach for planning out your network before you accidentally
buy unnecessary hardware. Also included is information on how to
connect two networks, such as might be in two buildings separated
by an alley or even several miles, via cheap wireless bridges.
* Chapter 6 looks at the complex topic of wireless network
security and makes practical recommendations about the level to
which you should be concerned about someone eavesdropping on your
wireless traffic and what to do about it. We also talk about a
new, improved security standard that should be available by next
summer.
* Chapter 7 helps you learn how to find and use wireless networks
while you're traveling. Finding wireless networks is the hardest
part, but we also offer some hard-won advice on the best ways of
using wireless networks on the road.
* Chapter 8 contains all the information I wish I'd known when I
set up my long-range wireless Internet connection. We don't expect
all that many people will want to connect two wireless networks
over distances of many miles, but those that do have a lot of
learning in front of them, and this chapter provides everything
you need to get started, along with some pictures of my setup.
This chapter might also open your eyes to creating short or long
hops for wireless networks that you wouldn't have considered. For
example, when TidBITS Managing Editor Jeff Carlson moved closer to
the office he shares with Glenn and others, he and Glenn looked at
topographical maps to see whether spanning the 1.5 miles (2.4 km)
to his new home was practical. (It wasn't.)
* Chapter 9 could be the most useful chapter for many people,
since along with the general troubleshooting guide that I
published back in TidBITS-652_ and TidBITS-653_, it offers
numerous suggestions and tests for solving common wireless
networking problems such as your wireless network adapter
not connecting, poor signal strength, intermittent signal,
inaccessible locations, no Internet access, and more. We
anticipate expanding this chapter over time as we hear from
more users via the new Wireless Starter Kit Forum on our
Web site.
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbser=1229>
<http://wireless-starter-kit.com/phpBB2/>
* Chapter 10 wraps up the book with brief looks at a number of the
pie-in-the-sky technologies (or more accurately, blimp-in-the-sky
technologies) that could change the face of wireless networking
in the future.
For more details, you can download a 1 MB PDF that has the first
chapter and eight additional excerpts containing 60 pages from
throughout the book (which is a total of 336 pages).
<http://wireless-starter-kit.com/excerpts.html>
**Buying Details** -- When writing this article, I was amused to
see what I'd written when first announcing Internet Starter Kit
for Macintosh in TidBITS-195_ from September of 1993. Given that
Amazon didn't exist yet, ordering online was possible only through
email, and it seemed extremely cool that Hayden offered a 20
percent discount with a special coupon code.
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=02401>
You can still buy my new book from your favorite local bookstore
(though probably not in time for Christmas), but ordering online
has become far easier, cheaper, and sometimes faster. For The
Wireless Networking Starter Kit, I've negotiated with Peachpit to
provide a 30 percent discount to TidBITS readers (use coupon code
PE-Y2AK-TIDF during checkout on the Peachpit site via the link
below to get the discount), and they're even offering free UPS
Ground shipping at the moment. You can also order from Amazon if
you want to make the book part of a larger order. Either ordering
directly from Peachpit with the special coupon code or using the
Amazon link below works through our affiliate program, so Glenn
and I make a few bucks more per book than through other channels.
(Note that Peachpit is still working on getting their parent
company's backend database to use the correct cover art: the
orange and green radio waves were a placeholder cover that we
replaced with illustrator Jeff Tolbert's excellent cityscape.)
<http://www.peachpit.com/tidbits/>
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0321174089/thewirelessne-20/>
If any questions or problems arise surrounding purchasing from
Peachpit, just let me know and I'll see if I can track down an
answer for you.
If you'd like to help me out, the best thing you can do is to
spread the word about the book to others involved with wireless
networking. Make sure to give them the Peachpit discount code so
they can get the book cheaply too. If you'd like to review the
book for a publication, let me know. And if you know of anyone who
might be in a position to sell or recommend the book, such as
people who work in an Internet cafe, coffeehouse, or ISP that does
wireless, have them send me email at <ace@tidbits.com> and I'll
see what I can do to set them up with special discounts or other
deals.
Frankly, I'm extremely happy with this book. I think Glenn and
I did a good job of including all the information anyone short
of a wireless network engineer would want. From what I'm seeing,
wireless networking is in certain ways where the Internet was back
in 1993. The title of The Wireless Networking Starter Kit isn't
an accident - this book really does follow in the footsteps of
Internet Starter Kit for Macintosh in many ways. I can only hope
it helps as many people.
--- end forwarded text
--
-----------------
R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah@ibuc.com>
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/>
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'