rank newbie question

Too short. Numbers are helpful.

Yeah, but you didn't supply the maker and model number of the wireless router. Therefore, I can't offer specific suggestions.

I still don't know what equipment you're working with. My guess(tm) is that you have a wireless router of some sorts. The router should be doing the PPPoE login to your ISP, not the XP desktop. Dive into the web based router configuration and setup the WAN (internet) configuration for PPPoE with your account name and password. If setup that way, you don't have to do anything on the workstation and you can uninstall or ignore the XP PPPoE client.

There's also a small chance that you only have a DSL modem and a wireless access point (no router). If this is the case, your existing PPPoE client is required to connect to the internet. If you have more than one computah, this is a bad idea as only one machine can connect to the internet at a time (unless you have multiple accounts and your ISP can supply more than one routeable IP address).

So, what do you have for hardware, how many computahs, and how do you have it all derranged?

I just got my first wireless connection a few minutes back. Says it's "excellent, 11.0 mbps." My browsers, however, just go searching for for my broadband login, ignoring the wifi.

Do I need to configure the browser (i'm using Mozilla Tbird) and/or email client to get it to work with wifi? Or is something else the hangup here?

Appreciate your advice, will roll with any flames.

czyp

Jeff - Thanks, and apologies for the skeletal description - I wanted to keep it short. That was good information.

However, it's true, I'm using XP PPPoE. The hardware is a Dell Wireless WLAN 1350 PC card. The connection is firewalled.

I've unchecked "never dial a connection" - "Automatically Detect Settings" was not checked. Since I'm on XP PPPoE, which you tell me is different, do you have any further counsel in this?

Thanks again ...

czyp

Jeff Liebermann wrote:

There are three differences between your derrangement and a coffee shop hot spot.

1. ALL coffee shops have NAT routers. This allows connection of more than one computah and possibly client to client isolation.
2. If a PPPoE DSL line is involved, then the router does the PPPoE login, not the client computer.
3. Most coffee shops do not use encryption on their wireless link. You should to keep hackers like me out of your system.

As long as you don't have a router to do the PPPoE login cerimony, you're client will need to do it. Every time you run a program that needs internet access, it will bring up the PPPoE client (dialer) and try to dial out. It will be going up and down all the time.

In addition, I vaguely recall that XP has a weird concept of "default network connection" or something like that. Go to: Control Panel -> Network and right click on the PPPoE connection icon. I think there's a "default connection" setting, but I'm not sure (no XP box in front of me right now).

My (free) advice is to spend the money on an an ethernet router or possibly a wireless router. Since you already have a wireless access point, either will work. Let the router do the PPPoE login. You'll also be able to connect more than one computer, and get some security from attack via the internet.

I'm not sure who "airporthru" is, but I would get permission from the owner before using their connection.

Good luck.

Small chance but that's how it is - one computer, one wireless card, a dsl modem (thru which I'm i'm talking to you here) and a non-secure link to a network called 'airporthru.' No router. I'm just trying to access the web through a wap, like everyone else in the world, so it seems from passing the local coffee shops.

Thanks for your (free)work in this - looks to me as if I need to just go to the internet cafe's or libraries or wherever the routers are. You've given me a fair amount of context to work with, though, and I appreciate it.

cheers

Or Herington Regional airport near Kansas City, KS.

Drivel: One of my friends was war driving through Beverly Hills while bumming money from his relatives and thought it might be possible to publish a book such as "SSID's of the Rich and Famous". However, when he tried it, he found that most of the SSID's were set to the usual defaults.

Possably an "Apple Airport" defualt SID ???

"Jeff Liebermann" wrote