[Villages Kahuna]

I have a Mac and I've become accustomed to the "user friendliness" of Macs in the 25 years I've owned them. I set up a wireless network in my home using a Mac Airport Extreme base station which I ordered at the Apple Store online. That piece of equipment will work with either Macs or PCs, but you could buy another wi-fi base station that might work just as well at Best Buy or Circuit City. The Linksys models are very popular wi-fi base stations.

If the Linksys installation is similar to the Mac Aiport Extreme, it should have a "setup assistant" to lead you thru a few steps to activate your new wireless network. It took me all of about 10 minutes, most of which was used placing the base station in a convenient place and hooking it up.

You asked whether $130-180 to get this done seemed reasonable. I would agree that it probably is a reasonable price. The Apple Airport Extreme costs $179 and the Linksys wireless routers, as they refer to them, cost right in the range of what you've been told. Your computer will have to have a wireless card in order to communicate with the base station or router, and I assume that you already have that installed.

Personally, I'd recommend the Apple Airport Extreme Base Station, but you'll be able to set your wi-fi network up using that or another router for just about what you've been quoted.