your Network Control Panel automatically.” (Including techie specs like IP address and DNS Server addresses.)
Manual Configuration If, for some reason, you’re not able to surf the Web or check email the first time you try, it’s remotely possible that your broadband modem or your office network doesn’t offer DHCP. In that case, you may have to fiddle with the network settings manually. See “Connection Management” on page 354 for details.
WiFi Hot Spots All Versions
If your PC has WiFi—the 802.11 (WiFi) wireless networking technology—it can communicate with a wireless base station up to 300 feet away, much like a cordless phone. Doing so lets you surf the Web from your laptop in a hotel room, for example, or share files with someone across the building from you. Chapter 24 has much more information about setting up a WiFi network. The real fun begins, however, when it comes time to join one. Sometimes you just want to join a friend’s WiFi network. Sometimes you’ve got time to kill in an airport, and it’s worth a $7 splurge for half an hour. And sometimes, at some street corners in big cities, WiFi signals bleeding out of apartment buildings might give you a choice of several free hot spots to join. If you’re in a new place, and Windows discovers, on its own, that you’re in a WiFi hot spot, then the n icon (on the system tray) glows orange. Here’s how to proceed: 1. Click the Network icon (n). power users’ clinic
PPPoE and DSL If you have DSL service, you may be directed to create a PPPoE service. It stands for PPP over Ethernet, meaning that although your DSL “modem” is connected to your Ethernet port, you still have to make and break your Internet connections manually, as though you had a dial-up modem. To set this up, open the Network and Sharing Center (page 755). Click “Set up a new connection or network.” In the
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next box, click “Connect to the Internet.” In the next box—which is known as the “Connect to the Internet” wizard—click “Broadband (PPPoE).” Fill in the PPPoE box as directed by your ISP (usually just your account name and password). From here on in, you start and end your Internet connections exactly as though you had a dial-up modem—for example, by clicking the n icon on your taskbar tray, and then clicking the network name.