Rick's World

I've had a wireless network in my home for several years now. Even though I have the network, I've rarely used it. Both of my computers are in the same room as the router and they are all connected directly to the router with Ethernet cables. I originally got the wireless router so I could use my old laptop from the living room. Since at the time, my laptop was running Linux, that whole wireless network thing never really worked out. For the longest time, my home wireless network was basically useless. Something has happened recently that has made me change that outlook.

That something was the Nintendo DS and later the Nintendo Wii. Both devices include built in wireless networking. It's an amazing thought to be sitting there holding your little handheld video game machine and be able to easily (and for free!) play video games against anyone in the world! It really opens up huge new possibilities in what you can do with a video game device. On top of that, the Wii not only updates itself wirelessly over the network, it comes with a very capable web browser that turns your TV into a fairly decent web browsing machine. You can even send and receive emails from the Wii. And all this functionality is free!

For years I've been toying with the idea of wiring my entire home for Ethernet. I never liked the fact that wireless networks were slow and relatively insecure. Now, I find myself seriously considering upgrading to the Apple Airport Extreme, which runs a MUCH faster, much more secure wireless network and just using wireless throughout my home. I'm beginning to think that the whole wiring the house for Ethernet idea is not needed anymore... I procrastinated long enough that the problem solved itself!

The more I think about all the electronic devices in my house having wireless network connectivity, the more I like it! I want to add wireless to my DirecTV DVR now as well as my DirecTV Tivo... If both of those things could update themselves wirelessly over the Internet, rather than dialing out on built in modems, that would not only not tie up my phone line at times, it would make the updates significantly faster. I'm going to have to investigate if this can be done...