Carputer, how should I connect to ISPs?

[BDP]

Hey guys, I'm new here and figured I would ask you all what I signed up to ask.

I have a carputer and decided on swapping out the USB 802.11 for something else more usefull to me. Currently I must connect to the carputer through a Ad-hoc connection on my laptop If it is too far away from my router and my woman is getting her new laptop soon and I want her to be able to connect to the car to upload/sync info.

I have always thought of bridging routers but somewhere in the past determined it was a bad idea. What would really happen if I put - say a linksys -G router in my car? I know I couldnt 'pick - n - choose' which SSID I connected to (easily) so would it really be usefull?

What else would you recommend to use as a network interface that will connect to a hub in the car? I know linksys makes some rj-45 wifi interfaces but I dont know if they have a seperate power source.

Just some ideas would be helpfull. Thanks for your time.

[UrbanKhoja]

Hey guys, I'm new here and figured I would ask you all what I signed up to ask.

I have a carputer and decided on swapping out the USB 802.11 for something else more usefull to me. Currently I must connect to the carputer through a Ad-hoc connection on my laptop If it is too far away from my router and my woman is getting her new laptop soon and I want her to be able to connect to the car to upload/sync info.

I have always thought of bridging routers but somewhere in the past determined it was a bad idea. What would really happen if I put - say a linksys -G router in my car? I know I couldnt 'pick - n - choose' which SSID I connected to (easily) so would it really be usefull?

What else would you recommend to use as a network interface that will connect to a hub in the car? I know linksys makes some rj-45 wifi interfaces but I dont know if they have a seperate power source.

Just some ideas would be helpfull. Thanks for your time.

it kind of depends on what standards your carputer uses, i.e ethernet would be a good one, then see if you have a manual for it to see what it suggests about networking it, you may be able to simply run a cat5e cable from the car to your `womans` laptop, your subject was `how should i connect to isps?` , are you trying to add internet to your car? if so, unless you live in a hot-spot area i would go for a 3g data card, i have seen some routers that support 3g data cards on ebay, this would make a good hub for you although ethernet may be better as im not sure how effective wlan would be in a moving vehicle, you need to establish what your actually trying to do, as connecting a laptop to a carputer and adding a isp are two very different things. dont forget you will need to power any devices you add, if there 240v a 12v to 240v invertor will be required, you can get these from most gadget and camping shops.

darren

[BDP]

Sorry, I was in a bit of a hurry when explaining. The carputer has no room for card expansion nor has pcmcia (budget board) but ver 2 will be better fit.

Currently the board only supports 1.1 USB as its a 1Ghz processor. When I remote start the vehicle in the mornings to warm it up, the puter boots to XP Pro and syncronizes its MP3/Movie database/folders with my server over my WLAN 802.11g and its usb WiFi adapter. I want to add more connectivity into the vehicle for passengers/other computers with no Wifi Access, printers/hard disks anything networkable. The carputer was built mainly to store MP3s and movies and run navigation, its got a backup camera, games, Playstation, custom interface, phone integration and more.

I built a 7Ahr SLA Tank circuit which will power the carputer for aprox 2 hours before depleating the 12v SLA and kicking over to my main car cell.

I recently ran into some issues with my hacked up XP version, you would be shocked at the amount of spyware and trojans you pick up while wardriving. I've seen some crazy SSIDs out there as well.
If my city would provide 802.11a/b/g then I would be all for it, since they dont and I dont want to spend money on a slower CDMA/GPRS radio speeds (I own a smartphone), I will just have to use wifi when I can.

perhaps these will help explain better
http://www.nwaimports.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=4497&stc=1&d=1142951026.jpg

http://www.nwaimports.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=4189&stc=1&d=1135463400.jpg

[EriCartman13]

I don't think they are going to help you anymore know that you wardrive. If you didn't know that is illegal.

[BDP]

Yes I did and no I am no longer a wardriver as that was basically my title at my company, not that I need to explain anything to uneducated internet hounds but I will since you obviously dont know - it is only illegal if you connect to someones personal (non-public) AP without permission. There are programs designed to log and map AP beacon transmissions that AP's send out as a packet containing its SSID and other data usually every 100 milliseconds, you must dissable your NETBEUI, TCP/IP and other networking protocols in order to wardrive to protect yourself from prosecution in case of accidental autoconnect where there is a DHCP translation.

Companies like mine do wardriving, as internet kids call it, to gather statistics about wireless networks in a given area to better provide services and tech support. I volunteered simply because of my carputer (and I was getting tired of spending all at my desk), but later decided it was causing too much conflict with my O/S and everyday carputer operation.
I did use a dedicated machine for a while but was running up too many weekly miles on my vehicle.

Back to the original topic, I needed to know how to extend my AP range in the vehicle to 1) provide longer distance between HOME and WORK AP's (which I have permission to use) and 2) provide IP addresses to RJ-45 devices in the vehicle via a HUB. I cannot install another NIC I am allowed only one.
I found various USB-Network adapters to fit my needs, and I am going to purchase an 802.11n router for home use and I am just hoping I can connect to work AP better with the newer technology- I also decided to go with bluetooth for all my direct connections instead of cat5/cat6 cabled or ad-hoc connections.

Now that I have wasted my time explaining IN DETAIL personal information to stangers for simple help requests, let me spend a couple more seconds helping a couple of you guys (not inteded for all members) - Its bad practice to answer questions you dont know the answer to, dont assume everyone you meet is mentally challenged, READ all the facts before assuming crap and research your responses.

I am a webmaster and run a forum myself and it just burns me that a new member gets treated like this (not just this thread). I havent looked around the entire forum yet to see how others respond to questions asked but so far I have asked 2 and have gotten about 60% of responses that are based on diarea of the mouth. The Moderators seem to be doing an excellent job and the layout here is wonderful. Thanks for letting me get a chance to become a member Dani, but these guys just arent my type of IT professionals so I am sorry for wasting everyones time with my ill-explained problems or my failure to introduce myself (which I just now noticed the link).

Thanks to those of you who attempted to help with my problems I have figured it out for now hope my post didnt upset anyones' mindset as there were no hard feelings implied, so Goodluck to you guys - now get off here and get back to work!!! :P

[EriCartman13]

Yes I did and no I am no longer a wardriver as that was basically my title at my company, not that I need to explain anything to uneducated internet hounds but I will since you obviously dont know - it is only illegal if you connect to someones personal (non-public) AP without permission.

Well no one asked you to explain in the first place. I am sorry that I jumped to a conclusion that what you were doing was illegal but when someone says they wardrive one cannot help but think that it is illegal. I find it sad that you bash people who try and help you.

[UrbanKhoja]

right! chill mate - we're all volunteers here, doing this in our limited amounts of free time, therefore any responses you received you should be grateful for - even if they were limited or of little use to you, now i guess your lucky not many people have read what you wrote but i find it kind of insulting, and if you run your own forum; why didn't you ask them instead of bad mouthing us?

"I have asked 2 and have gotten about 60% of responses that are based on diarea of the mouth"

"I am a webmaster and run a forum myself and it just burns me that a new member gets treated like this (not just this thread). "

"don't assume everyone you meet is mentally challenged, READ all the facts before assuming crap and research your responses."

thats some powerful stuff there, just a question - do the members of YOUR forum talk to those who try to help them like that, or should we feel privileged?

Darren

[BDP]

right guys, I am sorry - I had a terrible day involving lots of money and trust issues between friends. After re-reading that, I should never have let my imagination out on other hardworking persons.
If a mod chooses to delete based on my authorization - then it would be fine with me as it was basically just a mistake.

Most of what I said is what I think but out of context and over explained as I do that often. I shouldnt have jumped all over you guy for assuming the wardriving thing and then calling people uneducated.
This is a fault of mine and a few of my site and forum members have suffered from my issues as well, but for the most part I just try to shut up.

Please dont take offense from my text - its just the internet and I am no one important for any of you to be concerned about.

We only have 1100 or so members but its a localized site/forum with mainly teenagers - which is where I get my online anger from :P
Yes, our members would usually not put thought into posts and just reply idle causing conflict with newbies, usually the newbie brings it on himself by stating rediculous claims or misspellings. I hate it when new guys get flamed for just asking questions the best way they know how except they might not have the education or IQ others have - but I guess we are all human and make mistakes.

But yeah - I should have kept all that to myself and not go into detail about people I dont even know. Sorry guys, feel free to give me hell but it was just a really bad day and I suppose I just took it out in a post.

You guys were helpfull here and I do appreciate ANY response as I know every answer every human may have cannot ALL be answered on random internet communities. Our forum contains only a couple computer knowledgable persons a couple are good friends, but computer technology is not the type of community we are.

I cant believe I was so disrespectful - just finding this forum on google, signing up and asking a question - then bashing the first guy who made a comment that offended me on a bad day - this typically doesnt happen and I am ashamed as an administrator to claim that post as mine.

Sorry guys. You may ban me or delete my account as I dont deserve the respect of other members here.

[UrbanKhoja]

no worries mate, thank you for taking the time to explain it - we all have those day; almost a ritual for me now :d

darren

[EriCartman13]

Ah no problem! Thanks a lot for apologizing and it is my fault for asuming things. You have earned my respect for posting with an apology and explaining yourself, most people would never admit there wrong and made a mistake. You account shouldn't be banned as I am sure almost everyone has made a mistake. The best thing is to learn from that mistake and not do it again. I believe it is always better to forgive than to hold a grudge on someone.

[ajax-the-techie]

It seems that this thread has gone a bit off-subject, so I stopped about half way through to put in my 2 cents about the actual question:

Have you experimented with using a WRT54G router from Linksys? The unique characteristic of this router is it's ability flash out the firmware into basically whatever you want. You can, with this router, log into it's OS (which is a Linux-based system from what I understand.) From there, any 802.11 need you may have is quite possible.

With a little technical know-how, you could easily set up a power supply of either a rechargable battery supply or, possibly, an in-card power system.

I don't understand why you feel that abandoning 802.11 is needed when you can work around it's trivial flaws so easily.

Anyways, I hope this helps a bit. And, guys, can't we all just get along?