Surfing While You Sip
With a working Wi-Fi card in your computer, the next thing to do is to tune your card to the Wi-Fi frequency being broadcast at the hotspot you've decided to visit. This is essentially like tuning a radio to the frequency you want to hear. Just as a radio station has a frequency and call letters, a Wi-Fi hotspot has a network name, often called an SSID, that you can use to tune to the particular hotspot.
The specifics of setting your Wi-Fi card to a hotspot will differ somewhat depending on the software that comes with the card (see Chapter 8 for more information about this). Figure 3.9 shows Wi-Fi card software that sets up a separate profile for each hotspot. You can store settings for multiple access points and switch ...
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