Having recently moved into an apartment while we wait for our new house to be ready, I had to set up my wireless home network with a Linksys router hooked up to Comcast XFinity.
Here are the basic steps you'll want to take to personalize and secure your wireless home network. You don't have to be technical to do this - just follow these easy steps and make sure your settings are the same as the screenshots below.
1. Connect to your wireless network
Plug your wireless router (aka. wifi access point) into your Comcast, Frontier or DirecTV modem and look for a network named "linksys" in your computer's wireless networking settings.
On a Mac, just click the wireless icon on the top right of your screen to see a list of available networks.
Clik here to view.
On a Windows PC, you should see a wireless icon on the lower right of your screen, in the taskbar.
Select this network and it should connect without asking you for a password, because we haven't set up a password yet.
2. Log in as the Administrator
Open a web browser and type in http://192.168.1.1 to access the admin console for your Linksys router.
You'll be prompted for a username and password. Use admin in both fields, which is the default username and password for all Linksys routers.
3. Give your network a name
Click the Wireless tab in your linksys admin console and enter a name for your wireless network in the Network Name (SSID) field. I'm a Lord of the Rings fan, and a total geek, so I called mine gandalf :-)
Clik here to view.
Make sure you click "Save Settings" when you're done.
Since you changed the name of your network, you'll need to repeat the first two steps (connect to your newly named network, and log back in as the Administrator).
