Wireless home network question

[VOV]

I have a linksys router that has an open wireless network which I connect to via my laptop.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When I search for an internet connection I see several other networks belonging to my neighbours. All of theirs are locked with a password, mine is not. I'm looking to find out how to make my network private so that only I may connect to it with a password.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm new to this whole router thing, I've only used landlines in the past and never owned a laptop before. I purchased both of these items a week back so I'm still fairly new to the whole setup.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have both disks that came with the router so if I need to set some admin properties or whatnot please tell. Thanks for the help.

[Sharper]

Use the wireless security feature in your linksys routers settings. (http://192.168.1.1 to set this up).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You can also specify your router to only accept wireless connections from certain mac addresses, so find out your current computers mac address and add that into the allowed addresses.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you need more information on how to do this your best place would be the linksys websites knowledge base. All these features are explained in great detail, good luck.