[Endeavor]

When I go back to school this fall I'd like to set up a wireless network in my appartment as my school has limited wireless access on campus. I want to buy a Sonnet Aria Extreme PC card for my PowerBook and use it with a 'G' router from say DLink or Netgear to connect to our network. Essentially I would just be using the router as a bridge and to connect my PS2. Does anyone have any suggestions on a unit to buy for this task. From what I understand, a router with things like DHCP disabled should be able to act in this manner. I've seen some really good deals on the DI-524 for example and want to take advantage of them if I can. Thanks a lot.

[ginoledesma]

I'm not entirely clear on how your network setup is. Am I right in saying that your apartment has a wired network connection to your school network?

If all you want is to have wireless, then you just need to buy a wireless card for your PowerBook (Airport Extreme or whatnot) and either one of the following:
- Wireless router
- Wireless access point

The difference between the two is that wireless routers are basically used for sharing a single Internet connection with multiple computers. A wireless access point, on the other hand, just bridges a wireless network and a wired network.

The DI-524 you mentioned is a wireless router. You can share a single Internet connection if you want to, or make it act as a simple Wireless Access Point. A full-fledged Wireless Access Point like the DWL-6700AP has a wee bit more features when it comes to being a wireless device: it can act in ad-hoc mode (peer to peer), bridge mode (extend the range of an existing wireless access point), AP mode (regular access point), etc.

Either of the two will work for you.

The only reason why you'd need to disable DHCP is so that your wireless device will not conflict with the network setup. It may be possible that your network already has an existing DHCP server, or that you are assigned specific (static/non-changing) IP addresses.

Other than the D-Link product you mentioned, Linksys's WRT54G is getting particularly good reviews, as well as the Netgear WGR614.

I tend to stay away from the "super" models, like those claiming to be 108Mbps (or "double the speed"). You usually need a card+AP combo to get that kind of speed, which simply means it won't work for everyone.