I'm a newbie, and trying to learn.

My situation is that I am a peace corp volunteer working in the middle east. My job role has been director of our medical clinic on the business and medical side, but now I am needed to take over IT...but I am not strong in this area.

For a guest house that I am setting up for our doctors...

I have:

1 Dell laptop
1 Mac Powerbook
1 DSL external modem provided by my ISP
1 Linksys WRT300N router
1 Buffalo Wireless-N Nfiniti™ USB 2.0 Adapter

They have the ISP going to the modem, the modem connected to the router, the router physically connected to a laptop via cable and a powerbook accessing the internet wirelessly.

They lost connection on the powerbook. So, I connected the ISP directly to the modem and the ethernet cable directly to the laptop.

My question is how do I set it up so that both the laptop and powerbook are accessing the router in wireless mode, with no ethernet going to the laptop.

We're not using the Buffalo Wireless-N Nfiniti™ USB 2.0 Adapter because the laptop does have built-in wireless. I would like to use it in the future though(so if you have any ideas that would be great).

Any help would be appreciated....if you have a step by step instructions and or a link to instructions that would be great. I need to learn this because I know I will come across this again in different formats.

Thank you very much,

Todd

First check whether the laptop has wireless inbuilt (most less than three years old will) and that it is turned on (usually a small switch on front or side of case with an LED). If no external evidence check Windows Control Panel, Device Manager. If no wireless, add USB or preferably PCMCIA (aka PC Card) wireless adapter.

Read manual for adapter and router, initially switch off any wireless security until a reliable connection is achieved.

the laptop is setup for wireless...yes it is built in and the switch is in the on position....thank you...what next

As above: "Read manual for adapter and router, initially switch off any wireless security [in the router] until a reliable connection is achieved".

The wireless utilities that are provided for the laptop (or those with Windows) should detect the router's signal, so select that channel and once security is off in the router you should be able to connect wirelessly.

Once all is well, reapply security (but be careful to choose an encryption standard which works with both PC and Mac).