so, my laptop is a few years old, it still does everything i need it to do and works perfectly but i want a wifi card so i can use it outside my house, like barnes and noble or whatnot. so heres my question,
i have a sony vaio pcg505f running win2k pro.. can i actually use a wireless card with this laptop? i am 100% clueless when it comes to computers. i dont even know where to start..any decent cheap wireless cards? i dont need anything good.. thanks in advance

Does your laptop have a slot for a Wireless PCI card?
It is a slot that is closed by two small swing doors on the side of the laptop. Basically you plug this card which is more or less an antenna into there and wala you are done.

Hey, you want this. http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?...mp;type=product (http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?id=1051384223951&skuId=4049853&product CategoryId=pcmcat25300050003&type=product)

There are many different companies that make them, such as linksys, dlink, netgear,ect... You can find them cheaper on something like www.pricegrabber.com (http://www.pricegrabber.com) I have a dlink card in mine and works great! If you have any other questions just ask.

I'm sure you might already know this but you do need a wireless AP (Access Point) or router.

Also, they're pretty easy to setup and configure. I've done at 4 of them for friends over the past 6 months (as well as my own). Like 404 said, just ask the ?'s.

You can use any wireless PCMCIA card for your laptop on that model as well as the USB wireless models. I have a D-Link usb model and love it just because it is more flexible and transferable, plus it was $30

how do you set it up so that you can access your files and printer from your laptop once you have established the wireless router?

I can open the internet from my laptop but not access(haven't figured this one out yet) the files on the desk top, manipulate programs on the desk top or print using the printer attached to the desk top????

cool thanks alot guys.. on my laptop theres a slot on the right side that i plug the interface pc card cdrom in. thats the slot i would use for the wifi card?
im not really interested in using this at home.i work for barnes and noble and im in and out of like 10 stores in my district that have wifi a setup.. it would be cool to just hit GDC throughout the day

Your laptop should have a PCMCIA slot...basically they have been standard equipment on laptops for the past 6+ years. They are normally on the side of your computer and accept cards that look like credit cards but thicker. As long as you have access to a wireless access point no matter if it's at work or home then it should work fine...I suggest getting a 54G version since they are backwards compatible to older transfer speeds incase that's what they are running but are able of the faster 54G if they are running that. Easy to use.

Stefan said:
how do you set it up so that you can access your files and printer from your laptop once you have established the wireless router?

I can open the internet from my laptop but not access(haven't figured this one out yet) the files on the desk top, manipulate programs on the desk top or print using the printer attached to the desk top????



Check here http://www.homenethelp.com/web/howto/net.asp

Or google windows file and print sharing howto (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&q=windows+file+and+print+sharing+howto&btnG=Goog le+Search)

here is a picture of what it looks like

http://wireless.utk.edu/documentation/3Com/win2000/me01.gif

if you still have a problem just let us know!