Wireless Home Networking - Index of

Chapter 14: Other Cool Things You Can Network
them no bigger than a paperback book. After you install one, you use a wireless
keyboard, touch-screen interface, remote control, and other similar
devices to run specific applications on your PC.
Carputers are definitely in the hobbyist stage, in the sense that you install
one and then keep adding devices. We’ve seen setups with Wi-Fi cameras,
multiplayer gaming, and other such fun stuff scattered throughout the car.
It starts with the basic unit, however, and you can find a couple of good
online sources for basic parts and systems: CarCPU.com (www.carcpu.com)
and MP3Car.com (www.mp3car.com). You can get additional accessories to
boost your enjoyment of your car PC. A wireless keyboard makes it simple to
interface with the PC for text-oriented tasks (as is common with kids’ games)
and for surfing the Internet. You can wirelessly connect to the Internet while
driving by using a cellular data PC Card, like the Sierra Wireless AirCard 750.
So, you can now pull up to a hot spot and log on. (Check out Chapter 16 for
more about hot spots.) Or autosync when you enter your garage. It’s just a
matter of time until your passengers can play games car-to-car with another
wirelessly enabled car while driving down the road.
Installing your car PC is both easy and hard. It’s easy in the sense that you
screw the unit to your car and run power to the unit. It’s hard in the sense
that other than the wireless connections, any connections to your car stereo
or video system may entail running wires, just like with the audio wireless
car servers we describe earlier in this chapter. After you have all this in
place, though, using a different application is just a matter of installing new
software on your car PC. It’s just like with your home PC: After you install
your printer, monitors, and all the other parts of the system, the hard work is
done. Just install new software to do new things.
What does it cost to try out a carputer? Beginner packages, which include a
computer, keyboard, dashboard mountable monitor, and miscellaneous gear
are less than $1,000. Then you install software from the Web; a wide range
is available, from free, program-it-yourself code libraries up to full-fledged
software and hardware packages like those from StreetDeck (www.streetdeck.
com), which run around $2,100.
Putting a PC in your car is a fun project. Once installed, you can do all
sorts of things with it. Many user interfaces replace the existing car stereo.
If you need to remove your car’s stereo system to do the install, we highly
recommend www.carstereohelp.com — with instructions for each car’s
make and model — to find out how to safely and correctly take your dashboard
apart. Also check out the wiki on car computing at MP3car.com
(www.mp3car.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page), where you can find a great
overview of lots of resources for outfitting your car with tech gear. And the
forums at MP3car.com are a great place to ask questions.
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