Laptop and Lan internet access?

Bluehair

All righty then here's 'THE PLAN'

In a few hours I'll be heading off to PC World to purchase the following Toshiba Laptop (prob this model anyway..)

1.8ghz Celeron
256mb ram
30gb HD
DVD & CD-ReWriter
14.1" TFT
Win XP Home
(A little web surfing suggests the graphics card is the ATI Radeon Mobility 16mb)

All for Euro1599
(not an earth shattering price by any means but I'm broke and they're offering 'Buy now pay Oct 2003' no interest)

I intend it to fulfill two main functions.

1./Desktop replacement for home. Yer basic surfing and office stuff plus some games (most likely things like Civ, Warcraft etc.. so should handle that fine.. Won't be running anything like QuakeIII or anything much cpu or graphics intensive).

2./I travel a lot so it will help to pass the hours on planes (games, watching DVDs etc..) and hook up to internet access in the hotels.

AFAIK this is a reasonable system for the above but I'm open to comments esp from people with exp on Toshiba laptops.

My main quest for advice is how to setup the following; Once I sell my current PC I still have Ye Olde AMD200mhz/384mb/Win 98 system gathering dust and was wondering about using it as some kind of fileserver/cache/gateway to the net.

I'm currently using UTV internet with ISDN.

My house is pretty wired up with cat3 so the ideal scenario would be just to plug the laptop into the LAN of whatever room I'm in and be able to go online thru the other system. I'll be setting up the printer and scanner though this system too but thats fairly easy to sort.

Hardware wise I'm just missing the lan card from the laptop (will try to make them throw one in but if unsuccessfull am open to suggestions on where to purchase a decent one).

Otherwise I have NO idea about how to go setting this up

Any links/info/ideas would be much appreciated. CHEERS!

halkar

If your old PC has Win98Se you can use Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) which can be not so fun to setup. :rolleyes: But works if setup right.

I am suprised your laptop does not come with network card most new laptops do these days. OK, this might or might not work in your scenario but if you get an Isdn Pc card or an USB adaptor and have RJ45 connections on your Cat3 setup in the house which is going to your main ISDN box then you can just plug in and dial from any room without having to use another computer Of course in this case you will have to install your printer and scanner on your laptop as there will be no network.

P.S. Check your laptop for the network adaptor, if it really doesn't have one I might have one or two around

SemperFi

Yes Internet Connection sharing is probably the easiest route for you. Simply install it in ADD/Remove Software and set the LAN card to DHCP.,

leeroybrown

2./I travel a lot so it will help to pass the hours on planes (games, watching DVDs etc..) and hook up to internet access in the hotels.

Do they let you use Laptops on planes these days? (seeing that many have inbuilt radio networking and have Class 1 laser devices [CD-ROM])

Saruman

Originally posted by leeroybrown
Do they let you use Laptops on planes these days? (seeing that many have inbuilt radio networking and have Class 1 laser devices [CD-ROM])

Of course!!! But not during take off or landing.

Bard

Strange... by the spec's, that sounds like the Satellite 1100 1.8Ghz machine, which does indeed have an RJ45 port in the back for it's built-in NIC.

Are you 100% certain it doesnt have a network card? Practically all modern laptops today do.

If not, - well PCMCIA network cards are easy enough to come by, and Windows XP itself has built in Internet sharing.

It's worth taking a wee look at this article by Joe Davies.

Gerry

Yeah but does xp home have ics? Apparently it is quite crippled.

maxheadroom

xp home has ICS - right click on the connection in "network Connections", its on the advanced tab

Bluehair

Thanks for all the replies Haven't had much of a chance to play with it since yesterday apart from checking out some DVDs and installing GTAIII on it (which they threw in for free due a stupid mistake on their part and a little nudging on mine )

Bard you're spot on there is indeed a lan port beside the modem port, the lunky on the phone yesterday before I bought it insisted that there wasn't.. guess if it's not on the spec sheet they don't know about it :rolleyes:

In fairness the Sales guy was pretty decent apart from a small bit of overhanded pushing of their 'extended warrenty'.. Soon stopped when he looked up to me smirking and saying "thanks but save it for the next guy "

Btw Saruman is spot on Laptops are allowed except during take off and landing. Did a batt test with the DVD playing full-screen and got about 2.5 hours so not too bad (I'm normally in biz or first so it shouldn't matter anyway can just jack it into the seats power port).

ICS sounds like the way to go will have time to check it out next week so thanks all. Anyone with further links or info always happer to know more

And then off to LA in a few weeks and my new toy to keep me amused (just off to install Call to Power 2 now... )