I'm going to be buying a laptop soon and would like to know something.
My wife and I live in a flat so being wireless at home is not a big deal.
Our PC is in our spare bedroom and connected by modem to our telephone line.
Wife would like a laptop to use in the lounge.
Now can I have both the laptop and the PC connected at the same time?
I have a spare modem and plenty of telephone cable to run to the lounge.
What I mean is can I use the same ISP software to connect on both?
I don't really want to spend out going wireless.
I'll might later in the year when my contract with my present ISP runs out.
I then can then maybe go with sky or whoever provides the wireless routers for free.
I hope you can understand what I mean.

Simple answer is "No" - you cannot have two ADSL modems connected simultaneously to the phone line.

For two computers to have simultaneous internet access there are essentially two options:

1) Replace the modem with a combined "Router & ADSL Modem", then connect both computers to the router by ethernet cable or "wirelessly".

2) Network the two computers either with a CROSSOVER ethernet cable, or "wirelessly", and then enable "Internet Connection Sharing" on the actual internet connection (modem connection) in the Host PC. The Client PC will then also have internet access, provided the Host is running and online.

If it's a new laptop it may well already have a wireless connection, so buying a "Wireless Router & ADSL Modem" would solve your problems.

If it does not have a wireless connection then you could also buy a wireless card which would save having wires trailing from the mode/router into the living room.

That's what I thought.Yes the new laptop will have a wireless connection
So it will have to be a Wireless Router & ADSL Modem.
I take it that's a combined thing.
Any recommendations?

Although you can get them separately, they also come as a combined unit which is obviously better.

Sorry, can't recommend any one in particular as I don't use ADSL.
Although I have and use a "Cable" Netgear wireless Modem/Router myself and never had any problems with the brand.

Thanks.
I'll do a little research.
At least I have a starting point.
We won't be getting the laptop just yet.
Maybe sometime in July.

I also have Cable rather than ADSL broadband, but one of the most popular (and I believe reliable) wireless ADSL Modem/Routers is the Netgear DG834G and its variants. That's definitely worth a look, but also look at models from other mainstream manufacturers - Linksys, D-Link, Belkin.

The DG834PN was one I looked at.
Thanks every one.

I thought I'd do a little update.
Delayed getting the laptop till last week.
I got myself a new PC earlier than expected.
The wife picked up a second hand laptop cheap last week.
So we got a router and I set up the wireless.
No bother if fact easy really.
I still have my PC hard-wired direct to the modem router.
Set up network and got wife on.
Now here's the thing.
when I set up the encryption on the router web page it said something about
Allowed Client Type I wasn't sure so I took the first of the choices.
WEP.
WEP mode 64 or 128 I went 64.
Anyway I put in a long password and got a number.
Put in the connection and away she went.
There were four others choices.
WPA,WPA2only and WPA/WPA2 What is the difference??
Key Entry Method I put hex rather than ASCll again what's the difference??
It shows up as a secured network on my wife's connection and runs great.
Next question,is that it or is there more I should be doing?

WEP (Wired Equivalent Privacy) was the original method of encrypting a wireless network, but was found not to be particularly secure and has effectively been replaced by WPA (WiFi Protected Access). If using WEP, 128-bit is more secure than 64-bit. Some networking hardware will only work with a Hexadecimal key, so it is generally better to use that rather than an ASCII key.

If the hardware supports WPA, try using the WPA/WPA2 setting which will use WPA2 if possible, otherwise it will fall back to WPA.

That should be sufficiently secure but you can also enable MAC Address Filtering, so that only those network adapters whose MAC address has been entered into the Router's settings can connect to it.

To find the MAC address (Media Access Control Address) of a computer's Network Adapter, run ipconfig /all in a Command Prompt window and look for the "Physical Address", a string of 12 hexadecimal characters in six groups of two.

Thanks Mike.
I'll look to increase the safegaurds then.