Wireless Card Newbie: How To Use?

Stupidly simple question, I know, but: We’re planning to take a trip, and many hotels offer a wireless internet connection. We have a card for wireless internet, and this will be our first experience using it. What do I do to access the net? Can it be as simple as plugging in the card and launching Internet Explorer? (It never is that simple!)

Does the card have to be initialized, or something wacky like that? Will the hotel require some kind of username and password? Also, what determines what home page appears? I guess the hotel’s wireless server has that set?

…Just wondering what to expect!
Thanks! - Jinx

Some places you’ll just turn on the computer and there will be an open network. Others will give you a password and such at the desk and when you start up your browser a page will appear (the hotel’s page) asking you to log in and then it will allow you to continue to your usual home page…

I do this all the time at hotels. Once you get the comp up and running, I usually launch IE to see if anything has come up. In your case, since you’ve never set up your card before, you’ll probably have to go into network connections (unless you see a connection icon in your, systra (?) menu near the clock… in that case you can just right click on it) find your wireless icon, and right click it. A drop-down menu shoud appear and one of the options should be “View Available Wireless Networks.” Once you select that, you’ll get a Wireless Network Connection popup box. Select the option showing (should only be one if you’re in a hotel) and check the box below for “Allow me to connect to the selected wireless network”, then hit the "Connect box at the bottom of the popup. That should do it.

Please excuse the silly punctuation above. Also, I’m using XP, but I’m guessing it should be similar if you’re using 2000 or ME.

I’m also a wireless noob, but my quiestion is, how do I tell that I’m connecting specifically to my wireless router and not the neighbors’?

When you set yours up, you will give it a name and a password.
Windows will ask if it may connect to an unsecure network, so you can tell if it “sees” your neighbors. Yours will be secure with your password. If your neighbor’s is secure, you won’t know the password and can’t connect.

The thing is though, I didn’t set anything up specifically relevant to wireless use when I got the modem. I was planning on using wired access at the time. It was only later that I noticed that it supported wireless access. I’ve also lost the software that came with the modem when I signed up with the ISP, due to a computer swap (this is a work computer). Not having the software didn’t prevent me from connecting, though, after I got the new notebook.

Have you an internal modem in a single PC? Where does wireless come in?

I have a wireless/wired DSL external modem. I was using it for wired access only, but today I bought a wireless adapter card and want to use it wirelessly, but there isn’t an internal modem in the computer itself.

I’d go to the manufacturer’s web site and download the installation info. You need to get a password on that puppy.