wireless fun

I connected my laptop to my wireless router the other month, but until today had not got round to configuring my daughter's laptop computer for wireless connection. Configuring my SimplyMEPIS linux machine to take an Intel card was so easy, I thought that there would be no bother connecting my daughter's machine. How wrong I was! Even though the wireless LAN card was supplied with, and had the same maker name as the laptop, I could not get it to work under Windows XP - all I had was the message that the driver failed to load. Searching for a solution (using the ethernet cable connection), I discovered that others had encountered the same difficulty. The card, like the computer, is a rebadged OEM device and identified in Windows as a Prism card. I discovered that the card was recognised in the Linux system that I run on my laptop. So I came to the obvious solution - I swapped cards! MY laptop now has the Intersil Prism running under SimplyMEPIS, and my daughter's machine is using the Intel card.
Just goes to show that 'extras' supplied with a machine are not always guaranteed to work with it!

Security - what security?

Whilst working on getting my network moved from a wired LAN to wireless, I discovered a neighbour had set up a wireless lan also. Nothing wroing in that, of course, but then I saw the details - "encryption none, access control none". I also saw the name of the network device and sure enough there is someone with that name living locally. In fact there is only one entry in the phone book with that surname. Now, I ask you, how sensible is that? My router box is configured with a SSID that is neither the name of the manufacturer, nor any name related to my family. Not only is the access to my device encrypted. but it has a MAC address filter enabled as well. This means that only the devices that I have listed can gain access to my network.
May I humbly suggest that anyone who does not have security enabled get it set up as soon as possible?