It's an increasingly wired world, but many people are finding that the best way to get connected is to do away with wires entirely. From cable replacement to universal Internet connectivity, wireless technology is changing the way we connect to our machines and to each other.

As with any new technology, buying your gear is only the first step. Understanding how to make the best use of it is another story. Wireless Hacks offers 100 industrial-strength tips about wireless networking, contributed by experts who apply what they know in the real world every day. Each Hack can be read in just a few minutes, but can save you hours of research.

Inside, you will find a wealth of useful techniques for making the most out of wireless technology, including:

• Making sense of the alphabet soup of the 802.11 standards, and understanding which technology makes sense for your solving particular problem
• Using Bluetooth, mobile radios, mobile data networks, and other exotic methods to keep you connected, no matter where you are
• Practical methods for detecting, analyzing, and monitoring wireless networks
• Extending the range of your network, and making the best possible use of the available radio spectrum
• Designing and building your own antennas
• Engineering long distance network links that span several miles
• Understanding the security issues of wireless networking, and protecting yourself and your users from unauthorized access and eavesdropping

Rob Flickenger has been a professional systems administrator for more than 10 years, and all around hacker for as long as he can remember. Rob enjoys spreading the good word of open networks, open standards, and ubiquitous wireless networking. His current professional project is Metrix Communication LLC, which provides wireless hardware and software that embodies the same open source principles he rants about in his books. Rob also works with the U.N. and various international organizations to bring these ideas to places where communications infrastructure is badly needed. He hopes that all of this effort is contributing toward the ultimate goal of infinite bandwidth everywhere for free. He is the author of two other O'Reilly books: Linux Server Hacks and Building Wireless Community Networks (which is in its second edition).