Cantenna Guides?

So my phone service is disconnected, and with it went my ever so awesome dial up (/sarcasm), so I went searching around the outside of my house for a wifi spot, which I was very surprised to find, considering I'm up in the mountains, and the nearest house is a good walk away from my back door, where im connecting at. The connection itself is really sketchy, I am literally shifting every few minutes just to stay connected, and its gotten to a point where the dam flies arnt leaving me alone, so I figured I'd use an old USB dongle and make a wifi "cantenna". So my question is has anyone here ever made one before, and if so, could you point me to the guide you used. I have a page already loaded with one from google, but I trust people I've dealt with more than a random google site.