I've got a 801.11b/g capable wireless card with an airlink 101 801.11b/g capable router.
Both the card and router are capable of WEP encryption, which I currently have enabled, with a single key (which, as far as I understand, has weaknesses for 'real' determined crackers/hackers, but is fine to block out casual snoopers).
I use zone alarm pro, with settings such that I can access the internet and the other computers in my house (an ip range allowed for networking).
Channel 11 seems to work the best (I read that in the US 1, 6 and 11 are the ones most likely to produce good results; I haven't tried the rest as of yet).
I have it set so that the wireless will only look for access point infrastructure signals (which, I assumed to mean something other than a random hot spot).
Most of the time, the internet access via radio (wireless) works fantastic, but often enough it will die out and then quickly reconnect. I simply cannot rely on downloading a significantly large file without a download manager of some sort, or transfer a large file from my desktop to this computer, for fear the signal will stop and reconnect.
I've been doing a lot of reading, but there seem to be so many variables with wireless that I don't really know how I can strengthen the signal connection. Right now, I'm sitting right next to the router, and just about five minutes ago while I was transferring visual studio files to my laptop from my desktop wirelessly it died out halfway through (only to reconnect about 5 seconds later).
Does anybody have any suggestions from past experience that might make things a bit more reliable?