Is it possible to set up a wireless router to work with a WiFi pocket pc, without a desktop pc or with a desktop pc that only has a USB port (not an ethernet port)?
If it's possible, what are the basic steps I need to follow to get the wireless connection happening?
Thanks for your ahem.... detailed instructions. :) One more question. Once I've done all of this _setting up_ with all of this new equipment can I then just turn on my cable modem and my wireless router and have my pocket WiFi Pocket PC communicate with the router?
In other words is it necessary to have my desktop PC turned on whenever I just want to communicate wirelessly between my Pocket PC and my wireless router (which is connected to my cable modem).
Sorry if this all seem perfectly obvious to you. In my head, I'm thinking that the desktop might be needed once, just to set things up
Yes. Think of the wireless connection as EXACTLY like a wired ethernet connection. More specifically, 802.11 wireless is nothing more than encapsulated 802.3 ethernet packets. If you decode 802.11 packets, you find ethernet packets. So, wireless is just an extension cord in place of ethernet (without the wires).
The computer can be turned off and will not affect the internet access of any other wired or wireless connected computahs. The only thing that's odd is the USB to ethernet adapter. If you pretend that this adapter is built into the computer, with only the ethernet port exposed to the outside of the case, you have the equivalent of a typical wired client computer.
I won't apologize for seeing the obvious.
Correct. You need to setup the WAN (internet) side of the router to deal with the cable modem. Also, you need to setup the wireless part to deal with security issues. Once that's done and saved in the router, the router takes care of all the logins, authentication, encryption, delivering DHCP addresses, and much more.
One thing to watch out for is to NOT try to upgrade the router firmware with a wireless connection. The USB to ethernet adapter should be fine for that.
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