WiFi in Apartment

My 86 year old Aunt has moved into an apartmrnt that has WiFi already installed. She had wireless added to her laptop and she needs to know what she has to do to use her computer with the wireless. Does she need to get a provider or can she just use yahoo?

 

If there's already Wifi she only needs to connect through it through the wireless connection manager.

 

If there is an internet connection already there (WiFi) then all that she has to do is select that WiFi network and use internet explorer. Basically, she has free internet for the time being

 

What do you mean by WiFi already installed. If a router is there and plugged in the wall, that doesn't mean that you have access to internet. If subscription with the internet service provided was terminaed with the previous residents, then you'll have to renew it to get access.

 

If she has subscribed to an Internet Service Provider, then she just needs to select the wifi router in the wireless connections window. Then she is ready to go to the net. I prefer apple home page as my default page. Every time i connect online, i get to read the latest apple news, but it's your personal opinion concerning what default webpage you like. Many people like www.google.com

 

Thanks for your help, this is a new senior housing apartment building and she is the first tenant. I live 300 miles away and I have never used wireless I am driving up to see her soon and am trying to find out how I can help her set it up. She is in Covington, Washington. I hope she only needs to plug into an electrical outlet.

 

I'm a college student and have lived in places with free WIFI. Basically it means that the complex has paid to have internet brought in and has set up wireless routers throughout the complex to cover all areas (in theory). Its like when you go to Panera/Starbucks/etc and have wifi. She needs to do nothing else besides connect to the network and surf away--no ISP needed or anything else.

HOWEVER!!! The major downside to this is that it is not secure (even if there is security and a password, everyone else will have it and thus it really isn't secured). When I have had this type of access I always VPN into my school account so that all of my internet traffic is secure. Call me paranoid, but especially in a senior community, they would all be sitting ducks for someone to just collect all wireless activity. Yes, you're banking and login pages for other things (only login pages usually) are in https, but the rest of what you do isn't (unless you enable it in GMail for example). Thus I would tell her to just be careful on what she sends on this open network, as it all will basically be passed openly. You don't seem overtly technical, so you probably can't set up a private VPN for her (good project to look into tho in general), but caution is good too. Also, many complexes that offer this type of free WIFI also have ethernet ports in the rooms/units, which would thus be the more secure way to connect. I'm not trying to scare you/her, but its a fact of life today... Good luck.