Bluetooth and 802.11 are both wireless standards. Bluetooth is a short-range wireless data transmission standard most commonly used for peripheral devices. 802.11 is the wireless networking standard that is used by the major providers of wireless networking equipment.

Bluetooth is essentially two-way radio. It allows devices that are within about 30 feet of one another to communicate. The advantage of Bluetooth is that you no longer need cables to connect two products, such as a keyboard with a computer, or a computer with a printer. Bluetooth transmits both data and voice, so you can wirelessly upload data to a mobile phone from a PDA, for instance, or use a wireless headset to talk on your phone. Because Bluetooth is a standard, all products that use Bluetooth technology have been tested and approved by the Bluetooth Special Interest Group — a consortium of wireless vendors — to ensure that they meet the design and interoperability specifications of the standard.

802.11 is a wireless standard developed by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (or IEEE, as they are more commonly called). It's used most often for wireless communication between a telephone and a base station, a computer and an Internet access points, and a computer and a network.

802.11 comes in a variety of flavors that differ mostly by transmission speed and range. 802.11b was the original standard and uses the same 2.5GHz frequency used by cordless phones and microwaves. As a result, performance can be negatively affected, for instance, if you try to use your wireless Internet access and talk on your cordless phone at the same time. 802.11a, which actually came after 802.11b, uses a 5GHz frequency, and as a result, isn't susceptible to phone or microwave interference. 802.11g, the most recent addition, uses a 2.5GHz frequency, but doesn't suffer from the same interference problems.

On the horizon are 802.11e, which allows applications to prioritize certain data, 802.11i, which boasts better security, and 802.11n, which promises to be the fastest standard yet in terms of data throughput.

As with any technology, try to buy products with the most recent standard. They may be more expensive, but they tend to stay current longer, and they are usually backward-compatible with older standards.