Get connected: turn your laptop into a Wi-Fi hotspot

Get connected: turn your laptop into a Wi-Fi hotspot

 

Kavita Kukday | TNN

(Times of India Mumbai, July 26, Page 23)

   With a lot of households graduating to two or more laptops today, that snaking white wire has become a bone of contention. The wire in question is that of the broadband internet connection. Well, fortunately there is a more peaceful alternative where you could share your internet connection, either at home or at work, simply by turning your laptop into a wi-fi hotspot, without investing in any extra hardware. Wi-Fi by the way, is Wireless Fidelity, a technology that lets you stream your internet connection wirelessly. All you’ll need to start sharing the internet is a Wi-Fi enabled laptop, and a good internet connection (anything above 128 kbps should work)
   The whole jargon of Wi-Fi and hotspots might read a little geeky, but it’s really quite simple. If you are with us stepby-step, you should sail through. However, before we begin, there’s a small caveat: people connecting to the internet on your laptop might be able to see the files on your hard drive, so make sure you trust them. Else, encrypt everything of importance.

Working with a Vista notebook

On a Vista notebook you’d have to simply select the ‘network and sharing center’ option under the control panel menu of your notebook. Click on ‘tasks’, choose ‘set up a new connection’ and then ‘set up a wireless ad-hoc connection’ option. This is where you’d have to pick a name for your hotspot—something like ‘your-namehotspot’ is a good idea. Don’t forget to set a web password here, because this is the only way to secure your connection and ensure that only your friends log on to your internet and not the entire world. This
is the password that your friends/family can use while logging on to your hotspot.
   Finally, click the bar to turn on internet connection sharing. Now other laptops will find your hotspot on the list of wireless connections available, just click on the connection and you are good to go.

On Windows XP notebooks

The process is slightly more complex with Windows XP notebooks. Select ‘network connections’ from the control panel menu. You will find a tab called ‘wireless connections’— right-click your wireless connections and choose ‘properties’ option. To ensure other programs don’t interfere with your hotspot connections, check the ‘use Windows to configure my wireless networks settings’ on your ‘Wireless network settings dialog box’.
   Now comes the part where you actually start with creating your hotspot. Go on to the ‘Preferred networks’ section and click on the ‘add’ option. Give your hotspot a name and then under the ‘wireless network key’ box change the network authentication option to ‘shared’. Choose WEP for ‘Data encryption choose’ and punch in your password here.
   Now you’d have to tell your computer to only connect to this hotspot and not other hotspots that are available in the vicinity. Go to the ‘Advanced’ tab and under ‘networks to access section’ choose ‘computer-to-computer (adhoc) networks only’ and click on ‘Ok’ to finish the process.
   Now you’d need to instruct the notebook to share this connection. Go to your ‘Local area connections’ under the networks connections section. Right-click on this option and select ‘properties’. Go over to ‘Advanced’ settings and under the ‘internet connections sharing’ section, check the ‘Allow other network users to connect through this computers internet connection’ option. That’s it. Now you can connect to your hotspot from any notebook in the vicinity.