Wireless Home Networking - Index of

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Part IV: Using a Wireless Network
We’re not sure that you’re ready to start telling people that your dog has
an SSID (“AIBONET”), but this is one good example of robots now using your
wireless home highway. Above all, make sure that you follow the security
suggestions we give you in Chapter 9. (Can you imagine taking control of your
neighbor’s unsecured AIBO — now, that could be fun!) You can find out
more about setting up an AIBO on your wireless LAN at the Web site listed
previously.
A mint condition, state-of-the-art, last-generation ERS-7M3 AIBO will run you
$3,000 or more, but if you want the cutting edge of wireless toys, you cannot
afford to be without an AIBO!
Wirelessly Connect Your Digital Cameras
When the first Wi-Fi connected cameras came on the market, we were jealous
beyond belief. We hate cables (which is why we try to wirelessly connect
everything we can). The problem was that only a few cameras had Wi-Fi (or
any other wireless) on board, and it was not worth throwing away a perfectly
good working camera because we were lazy about cables.
Well now, we can be lazy and happy with a brilliant product from Eye-Fi
(www.eye.fi). Eye-Fi offers an SD memory card outfitted with Wi-Fi on board —
how cool is that? Simply pop the card in your camera, take pictures, and
watch the pictures upload automatically as soon as you return to your home
network. Worried about security? No need — the Eye-Fi supports static WEP
40/104/128, WPA-PSK, and WPA2-PSK security. (See Chapter 9 if you need
some background on these abbreviations.)
You can automatically load pictures to sharing and printing Web sites,
including Kodak Gallery, Shutterfly, Wal-Mart, Snapfish, Photobucket,
Facebook, Webshots, Picasa Web Albums, SmugMug, Flickr, Fotki, TypePad,
VOX, dotPhoto, Phanfare, Sharpcast, and Gallery. The Eye-Fi Service intelligently
downloads your photos from your camera, handles log-ins and
passwords for the site, and resizes pictures (if your site requires it) — all
over a wireless connection. Photo uploads are free and unlimited because
they are using your home’s Wi-Fi and Internet connections.
The Eye-Fi card uses 802.11g technology, so it is backward compatible to
802.11b and forward compatible to 802.11g supporting 802.11n devices. A 2GB
card costs about $99 retail — and the great thing about these is that you don’t
need to buy as large a card because it can be offloaded more easily and more
often. Just too great a product to resist!