What is the difference between a smart antenna and a regular one?

What is the difference between a wireless usb card and a wireless card that looks like a computer chip with a antenna on it? What do the both do? could I just bye one of them instead of paying for internet service and connect off my neighbors internet?

• Answer:

  A wireless usb adaptor (not card) is a USB stick that is connected into a USB port of your computer and, after installing the appropriate drivers, enables the computer to have a wireless connection. A wireless card (the one with the antenna on it) is a computer card that is connected on a PCI card inside your desktop computer usually, which, after installing the appropriate drivers, also enables the computer to have a wireless connection. Generally they both do the same thing, the only difference is the type of connection, USB port or PCI card. USB is more flexible and easy to install but it has a small active radius, while with PCI card you have to unscrew your computer case and install the card inside the computer but you have a wide active radius. You can buy one of them, preferably the pci card (due to wide active radius) (this is a good one : TP-LINK TL-WN550G EXTENDED RANGE 54M WIRELESS PCI ADAPTER)and connect to your neighbor's internet only if it is not locked and it does not need a password to access it.