Q: We have a cable modem for Internet service in our home and use a wired router to connect PCs in four different rooms. My wife wants Wi-Fi so she can wirelessly download books to her Kindle e-reader. How can we get Wi-Fi in our hard-wired house?
A: You can have a combined wired and wireless home network. But you'll need to buy a wireless router ($35 to $100 at any computer store) to replace your wired router.
The wireless router can provide wireless Internet service for your wife's Kindle while offering you plug-in Ethernet cable connections for your existing wired computers.
Just be sure to buy a wireless router with four Ethernet ports to plug in your four wired computers. If you ever have more computers than there are Ethernet ports on the wireless router, you can buy a Wi-Fi adapter - $15 to $60 - for the extra computer.
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For product reviews of some wireless routers, see www.startribune.com/a825 online.
For product reviews of some Wi-Fi adapters, see www.startribune.com/a826 online.
Q: I have data on some 1990s-era Apple Macintosh 3.5-inch, double-sided, high-density floppy disks that I would like transferred to CDs.
I have a Power Macintosh 8500/150 that will read CDs but will not burn them, and I have a PC with Windows XP updated to 2007.
Is there a relatively easy way to do this myself? Do you know of anyone in the Twin Cities who would do this for me? Do you know of any place to purchase more of these floppies?
A: The problem is that your 1996 Macintosh computer doesn't have any USB ports, so you can't add one of today's external CD writer drives (also called a CD burner.) What's more, your Window XP PC can't read Mac floppy disks unless you buy a conversion program, such as the $48 MacDisk for Windows software (see www.macdisk.com/mden.php).
If you want to use MacDisk on the PC, you'll need to make sure your PC has a floppy disk drive and a CD writer. If you don't have them, you can buy an external PC floppy drive for $10 to $30 (see www.startribune.com/a827) and an external CD writer for about $35 (see www.startribune.com/a828).
If you'd rather pay someone else to do the floppy-to-CD conversion, you can try the California firms Data Recovery Masters (1-562-421-7105) or LPtoCDConversionServices.com (1-323-838-0980). Data Recovery Masters also sells 3.5-inch floppy disks.
Steve Alexander covers technology. Email your questions to: steve.j.alexander@gmail.com Please include a full name, city and phone number.