Technical question about wifi dongle

[PleasantOne]

Hi guys... hoping someone can share some insight here.

Right now for reasons I won't go into, I'm living in a hotel for awhile. The hotel has wired internet access, which I've turned wireless using a little mobile access point. Now, the problem is that the service the hotel uses requires that each computer that connects go through their little start page and all that. The DS and the Wii, of course, cannot do this... so I'm left without being able to wifi on either.

I'm wondering if buying the wifi connector would help me at all? Does anyone know just how it works? Would it utilize the connection from the computer it was plugged into, allowing other devices to "borrow" the connection *thru* the computer? or would it act more as a bridge/access point, thus not helping me at all? I'm not exactly sure if the hotel's services works by logging MAC addresses or using cookies, but either way, if the connector simply acts as a bridge, then I imagine the Wii or DS would show up on the hotel network as new devices with their own MAC IDs, etc, and I would then be SOL again. I hate to spend $40 on the thing only to have it not work at all... so I was hoping someone here might know a bit about the techie side of it.

Thanks :)
Ashley

[CokeCola]

It kind of depends on what the hotel is doing. Does it allow more than browser traffic? Say, can you authenticate using your browser then log onto instant messenger, use pop3, and the like?

If the system allows normal web traffic from the computer once you authenticate, then you’re probably in luck. The college I went to used Cisco Clean Access Agent to restrict what computers were allowed on the network, but I got around it by installing a second NIC in my PC and using Internet Connection Sharing. I plugged a router up to the second NIC, and anything I plugged into the router had access to the Internet. ICS basically turns your computer into a router, so the traffic going through it looks like one computer (the luckily authenticated computer) to the network. My friends had similar luck using a USB NIC and a wireless adapter intended for use with the PSP.

It will probably work, but it will also be very easy to detect and shut down if they want to. I say go for it. Buy the adapter at Wal-Mart, and if it doesn’t work out as planned, return it.

[PleasantOne]

It will probably work, but it will also be very easy to detect and shut down if they want to. I say go for it. Buy the adapter at Wal-Mart, and if it doesn’t work out as planned, return it.

Oh awesome! Sounds like it just might work... thanks so much for all the info! I'll give it a try and let everyone know how it goes! :D

[PleasantOne]

Okie doke... lucky enough to find a used wificonnector at Gamestop (and found a complete, mint copy of the Monopoly/Battleship/etc compilation for DS... $20! hooah!). It didn;t come with the CD, but tracked down the software on Nintendo's site... This works perfectly! Yay!!

The only problem I have is that I can't run Zone Alarm and have the Wii/DS connected. Not exactly sure if I can fix that, though... but I'm just happy to have wifi back :)