This is probably something I should know how to do by now
Yes! How highly inappropriate of you to register here, help others and then request assistance yourself. You should be very, very ashamed of yourself, mister!
but I've never set up any kind of broadband connection, so I really don't know what's required. Basically, a friend wants me to take my computer (specs below if needed) over to his house and hook it up to his wireless network. I'm assuming I need a wireless network card, which I believe my computer has. If not, could I just hook it up with an ethernet cable or whatever cable it is that's used for this sort of thing?
Most wireless routers come with 4 Ethernet ports, (RJ45, most commonly used) and, of course, a wireless connection. So if he hasn't used all the ports for himself you should be able to connect with and without wires. You can do both at the same time, too.
What you need is as follows
- A wireless NIC of either B or G standard.
- His SSID and shared key phrase. Both of which he should have documented
- Optional - He may need your NIC its MACa dress if MAC filtering is enabled (One look at the router settings should be able to tell him)
- Possible - Some older NICs do not support the full range of modern security features, but you shouldn't have to worry about that if your NIC is new.
- Possible - You'll have to configure your NIC to either use DHCP or assign it an adress, once again, your friend should have this documented
It could be that your friend his wireless network has no security whatsoever and you can simply connect without doing anything but enabling DHCP or assigning an IP adress. If that is the case, I'd suggest that you steer clear of his network until he fixes it..
If you plan on connecting with a wire, all you need is a NIC with an RJ45 jack.