USB wireless adapter for my little sis at Christmas and it wouldnt work on her XP laptop. It wasnt the cheapest one either, cost around �30.

Si I bought one of these:
Edimax EW-7711UAN 11n 150mbs Wireless High Gain USB Adapter

Works well on her laptop, and it was <�20 on Amazon.

But yeah - a cable will work better. 

"Now, I know next to nothing about wireless connections, but the most pressing worry I have is that I have no idea how far the signal will travel.

You see, the router will be connected to the phone line on the bottom floor of the house, but my pc is on the 3rd floor and I really, really don't want to move it. Any ideas here?"

Essentially, you are fucked.

Unless you invest into a new enterprise-grade WLAN router to replace the one given to you by your ISP, there is a reason these lowend consumer devices don't cost a lot and are given away by ISPs. Instead of spending 400+ euro or more on such a device, that same money would be much better spent on paying a technician to properly wire your entire place with gigabit ethernet.

And you would be much happier with the result too. 

"Surely 100mbit is enough, why should I invest in gigabit when wiring my new house?" is question often asked of me.

1) The cost increase in going from 100 mbit to 1 gigabit is marginal.

2) Assume you want to take a backup over your network, from one computer to another. Sending 500gb of data over a maxed out 100mbit network will take roughly 14,5 hours

3) Depending on your router, your network cards, cabling and such, a gigabit network will usually give you a 60-85mb/s transfer rate. That sounds reasonably fast and it is. Would you really like to save a tiny bit of money and go with 100mbit now (11mb/s) and then realize 5 years down the line than you have to upgrade it again? 

We use wireless in our house for some things but I wanted stuff like my Xbox360 to be wired for the extra stability/speed. I didn't want to run ethernet cable through my walls so I got some of these units:

http://www.amazon.com/Linksys-PLK300-PowerLine-Ethernet-Adapter/dp/B001J2ZSL4/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1263387004&sr=8-9

Yes, it's exactly what it sounds like. Networking through your existing power lines. It works REALLY well. And installation is a breeze. I don't know if they have these for European power outlets but if they do, I suggest grabbing them. They're magic. 

PLC = Power Line Communication

Ensure that the electricity in your entire apartment is on the same phase, considering that you mention your place has 3 floors, it is very much possible that it's not.

If device A is on one phase and device B is on another, they have no way of seeing each other when using PLC. 

Oh yeah, if you live in an apartment building (or any place that shares power lines) it might be weird. 

for all the information!

So I think I will stick with the wired connections for now then. I had never considered PLC but have no idea how many power phases this house has, any quick and easy way to find out, perhaps its on the meter somewhere? 

you can network through power lines?? 

Yep. It sounds like science fiction, I know, but I swear it works. I have my consoles running on it and it works great. 

I use my wireless over 1 floor and at any one time can have three units (2 laptops, 1 PC) accessing the same system. I have never had any drop out over the 5 years I have had it. I have a mixture of equipment by Belkin, Thomson and Intel, all G standard. I am with BT.

I also use a laptop in the garden in the summer at a range of about 50 feet, with four 9 inch walls between.

I can also pick up my neighbour's system four houses away, and used it on more than one occasion in the early days before he made it secure. I have just had a quick check and there are 8 other wireless connections that I could get onto right now in my immediate vicinity.

Go for N technology, not G, if you have the choice. There's realy no difference between the common players - Netgear, D-Link, Belkin etc, just buy the best you can afford. 

Go LinkSys tbh. It's basically budget Cisco stuff. 

Plug the router in and get a friend with a laptop to wander around the house reporting what the signal strength is like? 

tie one end of the ethernet cable to a rat, then push it into the nearest mousehole. Then, put some cheese near a mousehole in the room with your computer. When the rat comes out of the mousehole, grab the rat, untie the cable and plug it into your computer. 

 

ratin likes mouses 

Compusa.com is having a decent sale on a 52" Phillips HDTV 1080p 1920x1080 for $1000 - any idea how good that particular model/brand is?

* 52-inch LCD with a 16:9 aspect ratio
* 33,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio
* True 1080p signal compatibility
* Integrated USB port
* Settings assistant
* Pixel Plus HD
* Four HDMI inputs 

Only 30000:1 contrast? Lol, the colors will look like shite on it. 

Can't help you - the concept of spending that much on a tv is mind blowing to me right now... 

I looked at the price tag on the TV, then looked at a news clip about Haiti, then back to the TV, and I think I would just feel like an asshole if I purchased it. 

You are doing it wrong, such purchases are supposed to make you feel better about yourself, unless you are the kind of person who actually spends time wondering how it's "wrong" that in a day of active use, your gaming videocard alone uses as much electricity as an average african family in about 6 months.

Note: you don't have to give a shit. Really. 

The way to look at it, IMO, is that Haiti is not my problem to fix. Now, I sent money to Doctors Without Borders because I wanted to but it wasn't out of a sense of guilt. I wanted to help those people so I did it in the only way that I realistically can.

Buy whatever you like, Haiti or any other world disaster is not your personal responsibility. Donate if you feel strongly about what happened, though. 

You only care about Haiti because you saw it on television. You did not care about the people's situation before. You should buy a bigger TV so when the next natural disaster is live, you can more than now. 

 

Well, they didn't HAVE this situation before. Their entire capital city is leveled and there's something like 100,000+ dead. This isn't an every day occurrence in Haiti. 

If I bought the tv I would just be watching the suffering of millions of Haitians in glorious 52" 1080p HD. That would bother me.