Can desktop act as "wireless" router?

Rather than buying a stand alone wireless router....can
a person just configure his desktop with wireless card
to ACT as a wireless "router" and save some desk space
if short on space?

On Feb 7, 2:52*pm, m...@privacy.net wrote:
> Rather than buying a stand alone wireless router....can
> a person just configure his desktop with wireless card
> to ACT as a wireless "router" and save some desk space
> if short on space?

Yes. If you enable an ad hoc network your desktop can act as a server
for other wireless devices. Just search on "ad hoc network" to see how
it's done.

Dave <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>Yes. If you enable an ad hoc network your desktop can act as a server
>for other wireless devices. Just search on "ad hoc network" to see how
>it's done.

ok thanks.... I live in a VERY small one room
efficiency apartment and trying to keep clutter down
(extra wires, devices, etc). I am graduate student as
well so cost is issue too

I don't have a desktop at the moment but thinking of
buying one and using it as a wireless router for my
laptop as well....

so the desktop would have a direct WIRED connection
from the cable company INTO the unit.... and the relay
wireless signals to/fro my laptop via the wireless card
IN the desktop....yes?

The desktop would be leaved ON all the time and act as
an "entertainment" center for me.... music, iTunes,
netflix ....as well as having more horsepower for some
of the app's that don't run well on my laptop

I just didn't want to buy a stand alone router if not
needed...just more clutter for me

but I may be missing something.... is using a desktop
in this manner just as good as any stand alone wireless
router... or do the routers have some advantage I'm not
seeing given my example above?

you will need a "modem" for the conversion from either DSL or Cable
to an Ethernet port...
then you plug into that port -
either direct hard wired Ethernet single computer
or a router, router/WAP, etc -

The Router/WAP is all one box - size of a paper back -
so don't even think of messing with a kludge desktop solution.

On Mon, 07 Feb 2011 15:52:55 -0600, (E-Mail Removed) wrote:

>Rather than buying a stand alone wireless router....can
>a person just configure his desktop with wireless card
>to ACT as a wireless "router" and save some desk space
>if short on space?

It would be helpful to know what operating system you're running. I
can't tell from the usenet news header. It does show that you're
using Forte Agent 2.0, which is about 10 years old. Current version
is 6.x. You might consider an upgrade. Anyway, that suggests some
version of Windoze.

If your unspecified version of Windoze supports ICS (Internet
Connection Sharing), just enable it and you have a wireless router of
sorts.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Connection_Sharingd>
There are about 5 different ways to configure your network with ICS.
Since you haven't indicated how you plan to use your router, I won't
bother to detail which one is appropriate. Please note that there are
some rather severe limitations to what can be done with ICS versus a
real router. If you have a complex setup, that requires port
triggering, port forwarding, QoS, traffic management, and other
features found in $40 routers, you might be disappointed with ICS.
There are also some nasty bugs in ICS, which MS seems unwilling to
fix. For example, if you have IPv6 enabled in your OS, ICS simply
doesn't work.

Alternatively, you might look into proxy server software such as:
<http://www.wingate.com/products/wingate/>

Hint: Buy a cheap wireless router and be done with it.


--
Jeff Liebermann (E-Mail Removed)
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

In article <(E-Mail Removed)>, (E-Mail Removed)
wrote:

> Rather than buying a stand alone wireless router....can
> a person just configure his desktop with wireless card
> to ACT as a wireless "router" and save some desk space
> if short on space?

ME-

Dave's ad hoc suggestion may be the answer you need.

If your desktop computer happens to be a fairly recent Macintosh, it is
flexible in being able to share its Internet connection. For example,
an Ethernet connection can be shared over WiFi as you are wanting to do.
I've gone as far as sharing a dial-up connection over WiFi. It was
slow, but solved a problem I had at the time.

Fred

Jeff Liebermann <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>Hint: Buy a cheap wireless router and be done with it.

Point well taken

Now.... WHICH router to buy for watching Netflix and
such?

I need good through put for video streaming

On Mon, 07 Feb 2011 21:04:18 -0600, (E-Mail Removed) wrote:

>Jeff Liebermann <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>
>>Hint: Buy a cheap wireless router and be done with it.
>
>Point well taken
>
>Now.... WHICH router to buy for watching Netflix and
>such?
>
>I need good through put for video streaming

DSL, cable modem, satellite, ISDN, dialup, or two tin cans and a
string?

Just about anything will work for watching Netflix. However, I'm not
a big fan of watching streaming video via wireless. While a hiccup
here or there won't get a reaction from a web or email download, it's
really irritating when talking over VoIP or watching a video. Someone
firing up a microwave oven, the neighbors wi-fi, a cordless phone, or
any of several dozen assorted 2.4GHz source will make your viewing
somewhat irritating. Sure, Netflix has buffering which will help, but
I've noticed that most users are running right at the bitter edge of
not having anything in the buffer. You can start Netflix streaming,
and then hit "stop", wait for the buffer to fill (5 minutes maximum),
and then watch the video, but few users have the temperament for that.
None of this exists with wired ethernet connections.

I can't offer any specific recommendations without knowing what you
have to work with. For evaluating various routers, I suggest you read
through:
<http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/wireless>
Router reviews and tests:
<http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/component/option,com_chart/Itemid,189/>
Tutorials:
<http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/wireless/wireless-howto>


--
Jeff Liebermann (E-Mail Removed)
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

Jeff Liebermann <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

> However, I'm not
>a big fan of watching streaming video via wireless.

actually that's a good point I hadn't thought of!

so you are saying that streaming video and VOIP should
be hard wired right to the computer

On Mon, 07 Feb 2011 23:42:47 -0600, (E-Mail Removed) wrote:

>Jeff Liebermann <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>
>> However, I'm not
>>a big fan of watching streaming video via wireless.
>
>actually that's a good point I hadn't thought of!
>
>so you are saying that streaming video and VOIP should
>be hard wired right to the computer

Yes. Given the choice between wireless and wired, the best streaming
video and minimum VoIP packet loss is with wired ethernet.

However, switching to wired doesn't mean that everything is going to
magically work as expected. I recently fixed a home system where the
owner was watching streaming video via wireless. Most of the time, it
would work quite nicely. However, when his son arrived from college
to visit, and brought his laptop, everything came to grinding halt. He
had uTorrent running full time and at maximum bandwidth, which
seriously interfered with watching streaming video (Netflix, Hulu,
YouTube, uStream, etc). Replacing the brain dead ancient router, with
one that supported QoS (Netgear WNR3500L) made sure that the streaming
apps got priority. I normally don't do that, but that's what the
owner wanted. That helped, but still wasn't quite perfect. Convincing
the owner to let Netflix buffer a few minutes of video in advance
finally made things work.

The new router also supported 802.11n, which offered imcreased speed.
That worked fine until the kid's laptop created some interference. The
router immediately reverted to 802.11g speeds, and eventually slowed
down enough to make streaming difficult. So much for wireless
streaming.

VoIP isn't as forgiving as streaming. You can't buffer much VoIP
traffic before the resultant delay becomes obvious and unbearable. I
have several SIP phones and Skype running in my palatial office. If I
didn't have QoS giving the varioius VoIP protocols and ports priority,
VoIP would be totally unusable. Even minor random computah traffic is
heard as garble without QoS.


--
Jeff Liebermann (E-Mail Removed)
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558