newbieQ- WEP and non finite network

Archived from groups: alt.internet.wireless (More info?)

new to wireless, well, actually been using it for a couple of months but
its time to secure my network. I have an imac and a PC(XP) and a linksys
WAP all on a linksys router out to broadband. I have a single laptop
wirelessly connecting to the WAP. My daughter recently bought a laptop
and would like to be able to use it at her house AND my house. we set it
up here and noticed that there were a number of other AP's in the
neighborhood. This has led me to consider finally paying attention to
some modicum of security. I have done the easy ones...changed the SSID,
changed all of the passwords, attempted turning off broadcasting the
SSID, but when it screwed things up ( and checking the archives here) I
turned it back on. All this leads me to ask a few questions:

on a non-finite network such as mine, where my daughter may come and go,
how do I set up security? we both want to be able to access each others
AP, depending upon who is visiting whom. I am *really* vague on the
whole pass phrase/key thing...where are they stored? are they different
for each computer etc? any good tutorials on the web for this?

secondly, I noticed that on XP the list of available AP's and how
they're connected to/disconnected from , including "automatic" seems a
little, well, counter intuitive. Any freeware that simplifies this
process? Or perhaps a tutorial which explains the everyday use of this
control panel? I have netstumbler installed, but am not really sure what
it buys me.



Thanks
Jim