I just found out about www.boingo.com. They offer a free wireless configuration utility that works with most cards, and that supports WPA encryption. The link is at the bottom of the page. It’s great for older laptops.

Having problems connecting to a non-encrypted wireless network that everyone else is able to connect to? I just recently had this problem and found out that my firewall was corrupt. So, I uninstalled it and reinstalled it and was good to go!

It’s a bug in Windows XP Service Pack 2.

Go here for the solution:

http://www.pchell.com/support/limitedconnectivity.shtml

If you don’t have Windows XP, then you will need a wireless connection manager for your Wi-Fi connection so you can see what wireless networks are available, and choose the one to which you would like to connect. Well, T-Mobile offers a very cool (and very good) Wi-Fi connection manager client for free here:

http://client.hotspot.t-mobile.com/

Here’s a screenshot:

(click to enlarge)

It not only tells you what wireless connections are available where you are located, but it also has a constantly updated directory of T-Mobile’s Hotspots worldwide, which is cool if you are a T-Mobile Hotspot subscriber.

This software is a private version of PCTel’s highly commended Segue Wi-Fi Roaming Client. It is supposedly better than WinXP Pro’s Wi-Fi connection manager, as it has more features.

If you do have Window XP, and you want to check it out, you will have to disable Windows XP’s Wi-Fi connection manager:

1. Click on your START button
2. In Windows XP, go to CONTROL PANEL, and in Windows 2000, go to SETTINGS => CONTROL PANEL
3. In Windows XP, if the CONTROL PANEL that just popped up is all blue, then click on “view in classic mode” on the left”; Windows 2000 users don’t need to do this
4. Double-click on ADMINISTRATION TOOLS in CONTROL PANEL
5. Double-click on SYSTEM
6. In the window that pops up, scoll down the list until you see the program called WIRELESS ZERO CONFIGURATION
7. RIGHT-click on it and select PROPERTIES
8. In the middle of the window that pops up, under SERVICE TYPE, select MANUAL from the drop down menu
9. Below that, under Service Status, if it says STARTED, then click on the STOP button below it (make sure no pop-up ads created with this program are open when doing this)
10. Click OK
11. Close the SERVICES window and the ADMINISTRATIVE TOOLS windows
12. DONE!