Improving Wifi connection

I am using a wifi connection in my home to connect with my laptop (XP Professional SP2). The laptop uses the XP wireless internet connection wizard in order to find and make network connections. The wireless wizard will not always display and link up with my home connection (other devices I use in the same room have no problems connecting) when it does connect it can quickly cut out and have problems reconnecting.

Is there any software I can use to get better wifi connection and how can I make the wifi connection more robust.

 

Make sure router is high and not cluttered
Change the channel from the default channel 6 to anything else
1 and 11 are first picks as they are the two other distinct channels
, the others are overlaps
A scanning program called NetStumbler can help you better see interference and their channels
SSIDS should not be the defaults - Linksys or Default for example
Some people say on a g/b ( pre N ) router changing the signal to g only helps ( rather than mixed)
A lot of the signal is bounce around - moving the router over a foot or so sometimes helps in weak signal areas
Some people build tin foil focusing antennas to focus signals as well