new laptop with wireless networking

[gavcradd]

Hi, hope sombody here can help - this is probably such a simple question, but networking is one area of IT I know absolutely nothing about (I work as a VB programmer)

I've recently been given a laptop from work, and it's got a built in 802.11g wireless network card. At home, I've already got 2 PCs linked by cabled ethernet (using a direct connection cross over cable) so I can share internet access (using a USB broadband modem on the first PC)

I basically want to get the laptop connecting the internet through wireless. What's the best way of doign this? Would I need to dump the wired network and move completely to wireless for the 3 PCs, or could I have a wired and a wireless network co-existing? Ive seen wireless PCI cards, and wirelss access points, etc, but what would I need?

Cheers for any help!

[masraum]

I'd recommend replacing the USB modem with a wireless router. Generally wireless routers have a wired switch built in, so you would be able to connect both of the original PC's to the new router and then the new laptop to the router wirelessly.

To me, that would make the cleanest setup.

I suppose a second, not so clean option, would be to get a wireless AP and plug it into the backside of the primary PC. Again. this seems like a less that clean option to me.

[thinktank]

Here m8 take a look at my post, similar question to yours, take a look at the router as well, seems like it might be a good option for oyu as well:

http://forums.wi-fiplanet.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=3552

[keenanj]

A wireless boradband router with 4 ethernet ports would work the best and be the easiest to set up.

You could also just install a usb wireless adapter on you wired pc in ad-hoc mode and share the internet connection with something like winproxy, wingate or ICS (ICS most likely will not work). This would be a more advanced setup and require you pc to be left on.