> Unless you have Windows XP on all PCs involved (the "OS for dummies" <snip> then, yes, it is somewhat cumbersome to set up a nice wireless network
Heh, that reminds me of an image of a manual listing how to configure a network card on various systems. On all the UNIX'es it was a one liner, but on Windows it was an 11 step process :)
But going back to what you said, you said - effectively - that it is cumbersome to do a wireless network if not all PC's involved are Windows XP. Well, this may be true but it seems ridicolous if it is.
What's great about the internet is that there are standard protocols and that they don't care what the hardware, software or ANYTHING ELSE provided it all complies with the protocol.
As I believe Tim Berners Lee said, "People seem to yearn for the time when you couldn't read a document on another computer; never mind another network". But it's different now, a huge variety of systems and transportations - from the boring Ethernet to pigeons (yes, really) - all communicate with little problems. So a system on a network really shouldn't care about whether it's router is Windows or a toaster running NetBSD.