[dcc777]

Hello!

i just got my wireless network and airport card up and running. its great to be able to bring my ibook to different places in the house and surf!

i have a few questions though. what should i do to keep my network safe from others? ive read about WEP and such, but am not sure what i need to do. I can set my d-link router to 128 or 256 bit encryption and can set a hex or ascii key. what then? will it ask me to use that key every time i turn on my airport card?

any other tips would be helpful as well. im a new mac user and am loving it so far.

dc

[-Q-]

Read this. It's a great summary of the basic things you can do to keep your wireless network secure (or as secure as they can be).

[aaanorton]

Ya, turn the WEP on. I'm not sure that Airport support 256, but you could try. If it doesn't work, drop it down to 128.
Another thing you can do is enable MAC address filtering which will allow only certain cards with specified MAC addresses (a kind of serial number) to connect. You then add your Airport card's MAC address to the list and none others.
And finally you can disable SSID broadcasting and change your networks name. This feature is available on some of these routers, but not all. The SSID is your network's name. It is usuallly broadcast to help people find it and connect to it. If you disable broadcasting, a user would need to know the exact name to connect. Obviously with this approach, you'd want to change the SSID to something non-standard, so it can't be guessed.
This is about the most you can do easily and practically. It will keep most people out.