Wireless advice

[Tsuname]

I have a wireless network at home and want to connect my IPAQ3630 to it so I can swap files and use the DSL connection for email surfing. Any suggestions as to what I should get.

I know I want a jacket with a battery, but is it best to go CF or PCMCIA?
Are particular wireless cards better than others and how do I know if they will work with my IPAQ?

Are there variations in performance depending on the type of jacket they are plugged into?

My last concern is software, the OS is the one which shipped with the device would I have to upgrade to the newer version?

Thanks

[Anthony Caruana]

Hi there

I have done this a couple of different ways in the past.

I have used a Dlink dwl600 PC Card with both the PC Card sleeve and with the CF sleeve and Semson PC Card to CF convertor on my iPAQ 3850. I had a Dlink DWL 1000 access point connected to my to my ISP (cable connection to internet)

This set up worked reliably (I had WEP and MAC address access control for security). The only real downside to this was that the card drained the battery pretty quickly (about 90 mins) without an extended battery I also used a Compaq WLAN NIC with similar results.

More recently I have bought a Belkin WLAN/Router and am using a Socket Low Power WLAN card with my new iPAQ 2210. Again, I am using WEP but haven't enabled MAC based access control yet. The socket card is one of the priciest ones on the market but it seems to last for ever (well not literally). I've used it to surf the web and active sync and have been active for over two hours and have not yet hit the low battery warnings.

The socket card can be found on ebay from time to time. I bought mine from the Buy and Sell forum here for less that half the retail rpice.

Hope this helps

[targetdrone]

If you get a PCMCIA based card, it will also be usable in a laptop (if you have one). Many CF wifi cards are not compatable with a CF>PCMCIA adaptor (such as the Netgear MA-701), so even with an adaptor you can't use them with a laptop.