Looking into these, and the price range seems awfully wide for an item that, as far as I know, does only one thing. What do I need to know? I just want to have a wireless internet receiver on a desktop machine.

from personal experience, trying several different ones, I would strongly suggest going for an inner PCI wireless card. The Motorola one I had got way too hot and stopped working. The Linksys one I had sucked too. I had some other brand I picked up in the 30ish range and it also malfunctioned.

Hey Ben, I have this one from Amazon.

Amazon.com: Medialink - Wireless N USB Adapter - 802.11n - 150Mbps - 2.4ghz - Windows 2000 / XP / Vista 64-Bit /128-Bit Windows 7 Compatible: Electronics (http://www.amazon.com/Medialink-Wireless-Adapter-802-11n-Compatible/dp/B002RM08RE/ref=sr_1_2?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1309952473&sr=1-2)

Highly recommended on Amazon and I have not had any problems since very early on when I had to reinstall it when it stopped working for some reason-but that hasn't happened since the first few days i had it, I'm assuming an update to it that I got soon after installing helped there.

You want a 802.11n adapter unless you have a very old router-you don't have to match the adapter brand to the router brand. I know little about them past this, and don't know about anything new that's come out since I got this one, but I'm very happy with this one.