The only additional piece of information that I would add, is to do some research on the wireless card you get. I have the Linksys BEFW11S4, with the Linksys WPC11 ver.1 PCMCIA card for my laptop, and after I bought it I started to see numerous negative reviews of it on various sites as not having a strong enough signal to communicate at the higher speeds. The Orinoco 352 gold card is just a little more expensive, and I have since learned it has better perfomance. Linksys has come out with several versions since the first one, that may be much better, but I can not speak to them.
The area that I am trying to cover is not that big, so the card works okay for me, but if I want to go out on the patio, I am unable to get a signal.
Drew