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I currently have the following home networking setup where I use a MacBook Pro laptop and a Win7 desktop. Using Remote Desktop software is too slow over wi-fi. Is there a way to connect the two computers with some ethernet bridge but at the same time connect the bridge to my wi-fi 802.11N network?

If you could point me to a specific product on Amazon, that would be a really helpful point of reference.

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You would buy a Wireless bridge to get the wifi signal into cable. Then using a small 5 port hub you could connect the 2 machines and the Wireless bridge.
The products in the links should do the job. I like netgear products and so have linked specifically to them, most brands will provide their versions of these too.

You may also want to add an imporved antennae on the Wireless bridge depending on distances / signal strength etc

As per Barlops comment below, you will need to check whether your home router will support bridging as the two need to be linked.

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a)would his linksys router have to have a wireless bridge mode? b)is that wireless bridge you linked to compatible with any other router? note- I presume both devices have to be set to run as wireless bridges. – barlop Sep 16 '11 at 20:43
It's been ages since I set up a wireless bridge but I think that if the bridge is just set up as a client it can piggyback the wireless signal. I am however fuzzy on that. – Joe Taylor Sep 16 '11 at 20:44
While I don't know either, I think "client mode" is like when you have a wireless usb stick, it is usually just client mode, but one I had could be set perhaps to access point mode. client mode is it just connects to a wireless router. I think you're right about Wireless Bridge.. some Routers have Wireless Bridge mode that does that.. so client mode won't have anything to do with it. I think i've read of cases where both wireless bridges had to be the same model. So maybe that's always the case. Though I have heard of wireless range extender or something that would work with anything. – barlop Sep 16 '11 at 20:51
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@stackoverflowuser2010 Both need to be in wireless bridge mode, from what I recall. So check the manual of the current device you have, see if it even has a wireless bridge mode, and see what it says about what devices it supports for the other wireless bridge. – barlop Sep 16 '11 at 21:17
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Look at the draytek ap800 it can work as a bridge and has a four port switch built in – Stephen Martin Sep 16 '11 at 21:35
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An ethernet cable (straight through or crossover) will allow you to connect your MacBook pro to your desktop. You will have a direct connection without additional hardware.

You can then set static IP's on the ethernet adapters of both machines. If you wireless network is handing out 192.168.1.0 addresses, then you will want to have an address like 192.168.4.1 and 192.168.4.2 for the two computers. You will then put the iP into the remote desktop connection application and it will use that network interface to connect to the desktop.

Both machines should be smart enough to get online using their respective wireless adapters, if not you can set one or the other to share their wireless connection to the other computer over the wired interface.

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This solution would also avoid adding one more hop to the Internet path. – sawdust Sep 17 '11 at 2:09
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