We’ve tried hard in this topic to capture all that’s happening with wireless networks in the home. However, we can’t cover everything in one book, and so, in fairness to other publications, we’re leaving some things for them to talk about on their Web sites and in their print publications. (Nice of us, isn’t it?)
This topic lists the publications that we read regularly (and therefore recommend unabashedly) and that you should get your hands on as part of your wireless home networking project. Many of these sources provide up-to-date performance information, which can be critical when making a decision about which equipment to buy and what standards to pursue.
The Web sites mentioned also have a ton of information online, but you may have to try different search keywords to find what you’re looking for. Some publications like to use the term Wi-Fi, for example, and others use 802.11. If you don’t get hits on certain terms when you’re searching around, try other ones that you know. It’s rare to come up empty on a search about wireless networking these days. All sites listed here are free.
CNET.com
CNET.com (www.cnet.com) is a simple-to-use, free Web site where you can do apples-to-apples comparisons of wireless equipment. You can count on finding pictures of what you’re buying, editor ratings of the equipment, user ratings of the gear, reviews of most devices, and a listing of the places on the Web where you can buy it all — along with true pricing. What’s great about CNET is that it covers the wireless networking aspect of Wi-Fi as well as the consumer goods portion of Wi-Fi (such as home theater, A/V gear, and phones). It’s your one-stop resource for evaluating your future home wireless purchases.
Get started at CNET in its Wi-Fi Networking section, which at the time this topic was written was at http://reviews.cnet.com/networking-wifi/?tag=co. There, you find feature specs, reviews, and price comparisons of leading wireless gear. (CNET even certifies listed vendors, so you know that they pass at least one test of online legitimacy.)
What we especially like is the ability to do a side-by-side comparison so that we can see which product has which features. By clicking the boxes next to each name, you can select that gear for comparison shopping. You can also filter the results by price, features, support, and other factors at the bottom of the page. Then just click Compare to receive a results page.
At wireless.cnet.com, the CNET editors provide feature stories focused on wireless use in practical applications. Overall, we visit this solid site often before buying anything.
CNET, like many other sites, now supports RSS feeds. If you don’t know about RSS, you will soon: Most news and information sites offer RSS feeds to tell you what’s happening on their Web sites. An RSS feed is an electronic feed that contains basic information about a particular item, like the headline, posting date, and summary paragraph about each news item on the site. You use a program called an RSS reader, such as NewsGator Online (www. newsgator.com) or any of dozens of other free RSS readers, to reach out and access these feeds regularly. You find RSS readers that load into your e-mail program, browser, and instant messaging program, for example. All these readers allow you to scan the headlines and click the ones you want to read. You could set up an RSS reader to access the RSS feeds of each of these sites in this topic to stay current on everything wireless. We highly recommend RSS. By the way, the Google of the RSS world is the Syndic8 (www.syndic8.com) site. There, you can find a massive listing of user-submitted and Syndic8-authenticated RSS feeds. Just enter your keyword in the Search area and Syndic8 displays all the listings of available publications and sources with that phrase in their descriptions. Check it out!
Amazon.com, Shopping.com, Pricegrabber.com, and more
What? Learn about wireless on a shopping site? Ah, but you can glean a broad range of information from these sites that will help you in your purchase and evaluation of wireless technologies. Amazon.com will show you multiple pictures — usually the front and back — that you can use to see what sort of LEDs, LCDs, and ports you are getting. The user reviews are always helpful — we usually read the negative reviews to try to find the pitfalls and do more research on those using Google.
Amazon.com, Shopping.com, and Pricegrabber.com are great for telling you what other people are interested in and what’s popular — although what everyone else is buying is not always a good indicator of quality. All three sites will help you find out where you can buy the products and who has the cheapest pricing, although Amazon.com is more focused on selling on Amazon first and foremost. Shopping.com and Pricegrabber.com are more intent on linking you to other vendors and are a good resource as you start comparison shopping.
Wi-Fi Planet, WiFi-Forum, and More
Wi-Fi Planet (www.wi-fiplanet.com/) is a great resource for keeping up with industry news and getting reviews of access points, client devices, security tools, and software. Look for the tutorial section, where you can find articles such as "TiVo and Wi-Fi — Imperfect Together" and "Used Routers Can Create Whole New Problems."
One of the more interactive parts of Wi-Fi Planet is its forum, where you can ask questions to the collective readership and get answers. (You can ask a question, and the system e-mails you with any responses — very nice.) The forum has General, Security, Troubleshooting, Interoperability, Standards, Hardware, Applications, VoIP, and WiMAX sections. The discussions are tolerant of beginners, but can get quite sophisticated in their responses. All in all, it’s a great site for information. (Wi-Fi Planet also has RSS feeds!)
Another forum that tends to get a lot of traffic is the WiFi-Forum (www.wifi-forum.com), which runs out of London and has a more international clientele.
The Wi-Fi Net News site (www.wifinetnews.com/) is a great site for finding out what’s going on in the wireless world. You may have heard about Weblogs, or blogs: They’re link-running, rambling commentaries that people keep online about topics near and dear to their hearts.
Unless you want to track the wireless industry, though, you probably wouldn’t want to check this site daily, but it’s a great resource for when you want to see what the latest news is about a particular vendor or technology. We follow this site every day for interesting news and product or service developments.
Check out these other Weblogs about wireless topics: FierceWireless (www.fiercewireless.com) and Daily Wireless (www.dailywireless.org). By the way, almost all Weblogs offer RSS feeds!
PC Magazine and PC World
The venerable PC Magazine (www.pcmag.com) is the go-to publication for PC users. This magazine regularly and religiously tracks all aspects of wireless, from individual product reviews to sweeping buyer’s guides across different wireless segments to updates on key operating system and supporting software changes. If you have a PC, you should be subscribing to this magazine.
We really like the First Look sections of the publication, which offer you immediate insight on new product announcements and give you hands-on, quick reviews of the latest developments on the market. This site is great for the products you’ve heard were coming. PC Magazine is usually one of the first to review these products.
A one-year subscription (25 issues) runs only $20. You can subscribe to either electronic or print issues, which is nice if you want to catch up on your reading on the go but don’t want to carry a bag of publications.
PC World (www.pcworld.com) is likewise a great resource. We’d be hard-pressed to say whether it’s better or worse than PC Magazine — the reviews, articles, and overall networking coverage are definitely as good in either magazine.
Electronic House Magazine
Electronic House (www.electronichouse.com) is one of our favorite publications because you can read lots of easy-to-understand articles about all aspects of an electronic home, including articles on wireless networking and all the consumer appliances and other non-PC devices that are going wireless. It’s written for the consumer who enjoys technology.
Electronic House magazine includes articles on wireless home networking, wireless home control, and subsystems such as residential lighting, security, home theater, energy management, and telecommunications. It also regularly looks at new and emerging technologies using wireless capabilities, such as wireless refrigerators and wireless touchpanels, to control your home.
The magazine costs $19.95 per year for ten issues. Back issues are $5.95 each or six issues for $30 (plus shipping), so you can catch up on what you’ve missed (we always love doing that). You definitely want to subscribe to this one!
Its Web site is also packed with great articles and ideas, and it’s a fabulous site for finding out how other people have adapted wireless devices into their home. A bevy of slideshows demonstrate all sorts of homes that have been remade into themed spaces — we love the Star Trek slideshows about homeowners who have remodeled their homes to look like the Enterprise! No visible wires there!
You can sign up for newsletters that will tell you about the latest articles on their site — we always find ourselves clicking through on some topic. Check them out at www.electronichouse.com/eh/newsletters/.
Practically Networked
Practically Networked (www.practicallynetworked.com) is a free site run by the folks at Internet.com. It has basic tutorials on networking topics, background information on key technologies, and a troubleshooting guide. The site can contain some dated information (such as the troubleshooting guide), but it does have monitored discussion groups, where you can get some good feedback, and the reviews section gives you a listing of products with a fairly comprehensive buyer’s-guide-style listing of features.
ExtremeTech.com
Ziff Davis Media has a great site (www.extremetech.com) with special sections focused on networking and wireless issues. There’s heavy traffic at the discussion groups, and people seem willing to provide quick and knowledgeable answers. (You can find some seriously educated geeks in these groups.) Check out the links to wireless articles and reviews by ExtremeTech staff.
The site can be difficult to navigate because the layout is a little confusing. We recommend that you visit the OS, Software and Networking area, where wireless topics are covered in fair detail. And, if you’re having a problem that you just can’t seem to crack, check out the discussion groups on this site.
Fan sites
All the wireless products seem to have their own sets of fans. Some fans go a little further and set up Web sites geared toward telling all about their favorite products. The most popular brand of wireless gear has long been that made by Linksys (now a division of Cisco, the huge networking equipment vendor). So it’s no surprise that Linksys gear comes with its own unofficial support site, with forums, tips and tricks, and even links to specialized firmware that can make your access point do neat tricks, such as act as part of a mesh networkto expand the coverage of your Internet connection across several access points. Check out the site at www.linksysinfo.org. If you have a different brand, don’t despair. Do a Google search or check out some of the sites listed in this section for forums or vendor-specific pages, or go to www.broadbandreports.com and look in the Hardware by Brand forums there.
Network World
Network World (www.networkworld.com) is the leading publication for networking professionals, and although this site is geared primarily to businesses, it has lots of content about wireless because so much of the technology first appeared in commercial venues. The site has detailed buyer’s guides that show the features and functionality of wireless LAN products — and almost all this information is applicable for your home. Importantly, you can also search the site for more content on Wi-Fi and 802.11 as well as on Bluetooth and WiMAX. The publication has a large reporting staff and stays on top of everything networking related.
Wikipedia
For having content maintained by the masses on the Internet, Wikipedia (www.wikipedia.org) is not all that bad. Anyone can update information on Wikipedia, and there have been lots of publicly discussed instances where vendors wrote bad things about other vendors on the site. But as a whole, it’s pretty good. Its wireless coverage includes topics such as the following:
Wi-Fi: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wi-Fi
Wireless access points: n.wikipedia.org/wiki/Access_Point IEEE 802.11n: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/802.11n
It’s a great tool to get a high-level idea of any topic, with substantial avenues offsite for more detailed information. What we like most about Wikipedia is that we usually find neat links to other related topics in the External Links section of each page — links we probably would not find elsewhere.
Other Cool Sites
We can’t list here all the sites we regularly visit, but lots of good information is out there. This section lists some other sites worth looking at.
Tech and wireless news sites
The following sites provide daily news coverage focused on the technology industry in general, or on wireless technologies in particular. We make them part of our everyday Web surfing routine — you may want to as well!
- SearchMobileComputing.com: searchmobilecomputing.techtarget.com
- TechWeb: www.techweb.com
- ZDNet: www.zdnet.com
Industry organizations
The creation and maintenance of standards has driven wireless to very low price points and great interoperability. Here are some organizations pushing for change in wireless — each site has info about wireless and networks:
- Bluetooth SIG: www.bluetooth.com
- Freenetworks.org: www.freenetworks.org
- IEEE 802 home page: www.ieee802.org
- Wi-Fi Alliance (formerly WECA): www.wi-fi.org
- WiMAX Forum: www.wimaxforum.org
- Wireless LAN Association: www.wlana.org
Roaming services and Wi-Finder organizations
As we mention in next topic, a range of potential services is available that you can use to log on when you’re on the road. Most of these have sections of their sites devoted to helping you find out where you can log on near you. Here are some frequently mentioned services and initiatives:
- Boingo Wireless: www.boingo.com
- iPass: www.ipass.com
- JiWire: www.jiwire.com
- Wi-Fi HotSpot List: www.wi-fihotspotlist.com
Manufacturers
Some of these firms are more oriented toward business products, but many of them have great educational FAQs (frequently asked questions) and information that are helpful for people trying to read everything they can (which we support!):
3Com: www.3com.com
Actiontec: www.actiontec.com
Alvarion: www.alvarion.com
Apple: www.apple.com/airportextreme
Belkin: www.belkin.com
Buffalo Technology: www.buffalotech.com
Cisco: www.cisco.com
D-Link: www.d-link.com
Hewlett-Packard: www.hp.com
Intel: www.intel.com
Intermec: home.intermec.com
Linksys: www.linksys.com
Macsense: www.macsense.com
Microsoft: www.microsoft.com
NETGEAR: www.netgear.com
Proxim: www.proxim.com
Sierra Wireless: www.sierrawireless.com
SMC Networks: www.smc.com
