I was sitting on the bus today after a long day of taking midterm exams when I overheard some computer talk of all things. More specifically, I overheard a conversation between two fellow riders wherein they were discussing their latest bout of computer woes and issues.
I’ve seen these two people a few times before but never had much to say or contribute to their conversations. Until today, that is! For the sake of storytelling, let’s name them Dave and Mary (no specific reason, they just look like the could be named Dave and Mary lol).
Dave was talking wireless connections and how he has been unable to connect his desktop computer to his router and the Internet. You see, his desktop has Microsoft Office on it while his laptop does not. This means that he can research his papers online but can’t type them on his laptop. He would like to be able to do both web browsing and writing on either (but preferably both) machines. Further, he thinks Office is expensive and the support companies he’s asked also want to charge him a lot of money to set it up for him.
Mary on the other hand, lives with her parents and uses a laptop for her online classes. She’s been having issues with a flaky wireless connection from the router location to her room. She said to Dave that her brother was in IT, and that she would ask him for help but he was on vacation. She further said that she was thinking about getting another wireless router in her room to solve the issue.
Now that we have the premise of their issues, let’s see about helping them solve them as cheaply and effectively as possible.
My Recommendations For “Dave:”
First up, let’s see about finding out exactly what Dave’s issue likely is. If Dave is using a wireless router, he should check to see if his desktop is connected to his router by any cables. If not, and there are no wireless antennas or USB Wi-Fi sticks connected to your computer, then he will either need to purchase an Ethernet cable to connect his desktop computer and router together or a internal or external USB based Wi-Fi adapter. The option that he should choose will depend on the location of the router and modem and whether or not he can easily relocate them to be physically closer to his desktop while still providing wireless coverage in all the places he needs. A wired connection will always be better and more reliable but that’s not always an option for everyone, especially if they don’t want to have a long Ethernet cable snaking it’s way through the house (heh)! If a wired connection is not available, he should look into a Wi-Fi adapter from the same company that his router is from. Granted, any respectible Wi-Fi adapter should work with his router so long as they are of the same 802.11a/b/g/n standards, but to make his life easier he should try to match them to get better tech support, avoid any obvious incompatibilities, and take advantage of any proprietary speed boosting and/or QoS options that may not be available when mixing in devices from other manufacturers.
That antenna is connected to an internal Linksys PCI Wi-Fi card and can even be replaced with a bigger one.
Further, as far as desktop Wi-Fi adapters go, internal cards that allow larger external or cable connected antannaes to be connected are better than the small (but portable) USB adapters. For dave, he should probably choose from the USB versions available to make installation as easy as possible. In his case, the easy installation is more important than pure performance.
As far as set up goes, he would just need to plug in the USB adapter and then connect to the Wi-Fi the same way he connected his laptop to the network 
. The exact software method depends on his OS but is easy enough to do.
On the software front, I would strongly encourage Dave to check out either Libre Office or Open Office as they bring support for all the popular file formats, even the newer Microsoft Office ones now so he should have no problem using it for school projects, and best of all: it’s totally free! Libre Office is basically Open Office but without the corporate connections as a group of Open Office developers split off from the project to develop Libre Office because they did not want Oracle to influence the software’s direction/future development. Libre Office is the one I currently use and it’s great, so I can definitely recommend it to Dave. Alternatively, if he just has to have MS Office, he should check with the school bookstore as well as Microsoft’s digital river Store page to see about getting a student discount on the education versions of the software! There is also a stripped down version of Microsoft Office online (similar to Google Docs) that he might consider using called Office Web Apps.
My Recommendations for “Mary:”
Mary’s problem seems to be one that many Wi-Fi users face, flaky connections when at the outer range of what the router can deliver. There are a few options that she could look into to bolster the Wi-Fi signal including directional antannaes, third part firmware like Tomato or DD-WRT to boost the power output (and switch to the channel with the least amount of interference, et al), and/or replacing the router and other devices with 802.11 N hardware if necessary. Even a Wireless N router would help extend the signal for G devices a bit but all these options involve mucking with the network that isn’t hers. It is her parent’s router and Internet after all 
. Rather, the first thing that came to mind when she was talking about the issue was Powerline Networking or MoCA networking. This would give her a wired connection (or at least as good of a wired connection as possible) to the Internet and will likely be better than any Wi-Fi mucking about. And as I can attest, the school’s online classes absolutely hate flaky connections and can result in a zero on tests as you can only access them once and if you get disconnected it’s pretty much over for you lol. A wired connection would alleviate that scary risk as much as possible, barring any issues on the ISP or router end.
Note: she said that she wanted to get a new Wireless router for her room to connect to their router and boost the signal; however, that is definitely not what she wants and is likely a confusion of terms but is worth explaining. A Wi-Fi repeater would do what she wanted or a router in bridge mode (which would act as a switch that is connected to the Wi-Fi for internet but does not repeat the signal, basically it’s like a networked Wi-Fi adapter for computers/other devices. A second router acting as a router is a bad idea as there should only be one router on her network else they are going to run into issues with the two DHCP servers fighting for one. Again though, boosting Wi-Fi by whatever method is always a bad idea when you can get a wired connection.
Anyway, Powerline Ethernet and/or MoCA networks work by using either the power/electrical lines or coaxial cables respectively to deliver network signals. The Powerline adapters would likely be the easiest wired option for Mary. What she would need to do is grab two Powerline Ethernet adapters and plug one into the wall socket where the router is plugged into (avoid plugging the Powerline adapters into any surge protectors), and then plug an Ethernet cable into the adapter and an Ethernet (RJ-45) port on the router. Then, in her room she would plug in the second Powerline Ethernet adapter and connect her computer to it using an Ehternet cable. Alternatively, she could get that second Wi-Fi router and plug it in to the Powerline Ethernet to get wireless but she would need to disable most of the routing stuff to essentially make it a dumb repeater and depending on the router this can be a pain in the ass or a config option to enable repeater mode. Again though, for school work she should really stick to the wired connection!
As far as which two Powerline Ethernet adapters to get, even the 100mbps models will be much faster than the Internet/WAN connection so they will work fine. You only really need to be discerning about speed ratings if you do a lot of LAN (computer to computer/device without going out to the “cloud”) large file transfers. Just be sure to purchase matching ones (as in, from the same company), or go with a kit, from a reputable company like DLink, Netgear, Linksys/Cisco. Some users may make a case for TP-Link or Trendnet but I have no experience with them; therefore, I can’t recommend them. Also, be sure to enable encryption over the Powerline adapters just as you need to use for the Wi-Fi connection .
Some Powerline Ehternet Adapters have AC Passthrough,
for those situations where AC power sockets are at a premium
If you happen to be in a similar situation but have a cable connection closer to your computer and have run out of open power sockets, MoCA may be a good option to consider. You would set up these the same way you set up the Powerline adapters, but would connect the MoCA adapters to the coax cable in your house instead of the power lines. In general, MoCA adapters can provide faster speeds than Powerline Ehternet; however, they are also a lot more expensive.
Especially in Dave’s case, by using Libre Office his problem is mostly solved for free but both of their technology issues can be solved for a little bit of money and are still easy enough to install themselves and not pay exorbitant tech support fees for Best Buy or whoever to come and do it for them!
Do you have a technology issue that is perplexing you? Let us know in the comments or hit up the forums! Let us help you with your tech! 
