Whoohoo, I have joined the 90`s! I am mobile posting, qwerty keyboard & all. The SO`s phone died (well, Alltel started refusing to acknowledge its presence) so we figured it was time.

I just read earlier discussion of wireless routers and etc., and just want to confirm: If I go to Gud's link [link] and pay them $40, I will end up with everything I need for wireless internet for my laptop? (I think I'm incredulous partly because seriously, if it's that cheap and easy, why didn't I do this years ago?) I don't need anything fancy, just the one computer online.

Since your laptop already has a wireless connection built in (I haven't heard of any made in the past decade that don't) yes it will connect you wirelessly. My one warning is that if you have a really fast connection, you may notice a speed difference with a Wireless G. Yeah, G is nominally faster than most broadband connections, but by the time you get overhead for encryption it is slower than most cable connections, though not slower than a lot of DSL connections. What is your current broadband speed? If you don't know it, try this link, enable flash if it is blocked, then select a city in your general region.

The router you linked to G.b which has nominal speed of 11 mps, but in practice will give a speed of 2-4 MPS. My cable broadband has a download speed of 9.2 MPS. DSL tends to run at a download speed of 1.5 MPS to 2 MPS. (The speakeasy test rates in KPS so my 9 MPS shows as 9,000 plus KPS).

That test showed my download speed at 7883 kbps, so does that mean I want a fancier router?

Maybe. Depends on what you do. Will cutting your browsing speed by half be a problem for you? I think you can get an N router these days for around $40 bucks.

I have not shopped lately for routers so can't swear as to quality, but here is a D-link brand N router for for about the same as your linksys G at Amazon

[link]

Ok customer reviews don't sound good. But you can probably find something in that price range, perhaps for five or ten bucks more.

Will cutting your browsing speed by half be a problem for you?

Yeah, I have no idea. It's so zippy right now, I can't tell.

Anyway, thanks. Will shop around.

OK here is something comparable at Target

[link]

You may be able to use the web site to find a target near you which has it in stock, which means that if it does not work out for you, you can use their 90 day return policy to bring it back.

I haven't heard of any made in the past decade that don't

"Decade" is a slight exaggeration. I had to buy an Airport card for the iBook I bought in '03.

I loved that iBook, even thought it was a G3. My first Mac product. sniff.