The Hoboken Cafe 

I have a Dell Inspiron 8000 at home and I am looking to get a NIC but I have WinME (which I feel like nobody else in the world has) so I am not sure what card will work best with my system. Can anyone offer any suggestions on this?

Thanks.
Melissa

3Com makes great network cards, unless you are going wireless. Then I would talk to you ISP (Internet Service Provider) on what is a good card. I would also talk to Dell to see what they prefer (unless you don't have support). If you don't have support, I have seen them use Inte They may give information on what is compatible or what is not.

Personally, I have never gotten problems with 3com when I was doind technical support for tons of laptops (approved by the company and not approved). When it came down to some other network card, I always had problems finding the right drivers.

Also, personally, I am avoiding wireless (too many headaches in terms of securing your data) but if you want to go that route, at least make sure that the data you are transmitting is secure (encrypted). In either case (wireless or wired), make sure you have a personal firewall installed. I prefer ZoneAlarm (Zone Labs) because it is free with an option to purchase additional features (which you may or may not want).

If you need anything else, let me know.

Hope that helps.

Thanks for the help Jerry. I, too, am not going to go wireless. I will check out 3Com. If I type in the serial number of my computer on Dell's support page, they do give some suggestions of different cards but my concern was that the cards all mentioned usability with WindowsXP, NT, etc. but not ME so I was worried that it might not work on my computer. I may be getting in touch with you again to ask more questions!

I have winME as well on one of my computers...it is like a cross breed or a mutant microsoft product...kinda like Broccoflower or that fruit Limon engineered by the folks at Sprite..

I have found that things that work on 2000 seem to work on ME...dont quote me on that in all cases but that seems to be the case..

Windows ME (Monkey Edition) is about the same thing as Windows 2000 and Windows NT. Network cards are very common devices. I'd be very surprised if you bought a card from a popular company like 3Com and it wasn't supported.
-sg

One of the reason why I love 3com is their driver support is excellent. After reading some of the other comments and thinking about it some more, one thing you can do is when you go and buy the NIC, is to find out what their return policy is. I found that I can almost return anything open when I just said, the device was not compatable with my system and don't fall into the trap of "well, we can install it for you." because it translate to "we just want more money regardless of whether we are successful or not."

When you go to 3com, go to the PC Card link (once you click on the country, then click on Products and then PC Card). Network Interface Card (NIC as you put it) listed on 3com website is mainly for desktops (not laptops). And don't take the 16 bit network cards. You are using a 32 bit operating system so the CardBus Lan PC cards and the Lan+modem PC cards should be fine.

Hope that helps.