Older laptops are perfectly cabable of supporting local area wireless capability. Pentium 2 and later laptops include PCMCIA card slots. These are slots that are slightly larger than a credit card and standard on laptops. Manufacturers make wireless cards that will slide into these slots and provide software on CD and/or downloadable that will allow you to connect to local area wireless networks. If you want to do this in your home and you have DSL or a cable modem you will need a wireless router to transmit the signal to these wireless cards in the laptop.

Some cautions: You should make sure that you have the latest version of software and make sure your firewall is turned on and configured correctly. Snoopers or worse yet criminal might get access to your files. If you are using your laptop in a public wifi site make sure it is a legitimate location, as they most like have their own security in place. When using your e-mail instead of sending and receiving it from a program use an web based provider like GMail or Yahoo Mail to send and receive messges, as they have security that protects data transmissions.