My streak of converting girlfriends continues, and on Saturday my current GF will be the proud owner of a new iBook.

She wants to go wireless in her house, but can't get the Airport Express, since she will be sharing a connection with a PC.

I am a total noob when it comes to this stuff. I have always bought Apple's basestations, so i am in the dark when it comes to other wireless routers.

Can some folks here help out?

Looking for something reliable, something that is easy to set up, and will have no problem providing wireless access to the iBook and wired access to the PC.

Any companies to stay away from?

Any to reccomend? Model numbers please :)

Thanks!

Linksys' WRT54G has handled 5 wireless machines for over a year now and has never failed this house.

why can't she use the express with the pc and mac? I thought it supported both??

It does, unless you need a wired connection.

My streak of converting girlfriends continues, and on Saturday my current GF will be the proud owner of a new iBook.

She wants to go wireless in her house, but can't get the Airport Express, since she will be sharing a connection with a PC.

I am a total noob when it comes to this stuff. I have always bought Apple's basestations, so i am in the dark when it comes to other wireless routers.

Can some folks here help out?

Looking for something reliable, something that is easy to set up, and will have no problem providing wireless access to the iBook and wired access to the PC.

Any companies to stay away from?

Any to reccomend? Model numbers please :)

Thanks!
I have a d-link 624 that have the actual router running a CAT 5 cable to my "old" pc. My Al PB 15" is running wireless off it with no problems (even when both machines are on)

I have the DLink DI-624 too. I'm pretty happy with it.

To be brutally honest, if you do anything "outside the box" with all of these home router devices you should expect SOME problems. They all have their shortcomings and terribly ignorant customer service people.

I've used Linksys, Dlink, Netgear etc and they're quirky.

It sounds like there is nothing too fancy that you need so I'm sure the DI-624 would be more than suitable. The best advice I can give is to find a router, do some research on it (the forums at http://www.dslreports.com are a good start) and take it from there. No matter which router you find, there will be people whining on DSLReports about it, so it'll take a bit of reading to find out of a problem is between the keyboard and the chair, a faulty device or an actual design issue.

Good luck! :)

To get the complete Mac "Experience" she should get the Extreme and connect it to a cheap ethernet switch. But if money is tight just get the cheapest third party unit you can find. In my opinion, they all work about the same. I had a good experience with a SMC wireless router that I bought for $30CDN as well as a more expensive linksys router.

Josh

To get the complete Mac "Experience" she should get the Extreme and connect it to a cheap ethernet switch. But if money is tight just get the cheapest third party unit you can find. In my opinion, they all work about the same. I had a good experience with a SMC wireless router that I bought for $30CDN as well as a more expensive linksys router.

Josh

I remember one of the SMC routers was released with a flaw in the firmware around the MAC filtering.

Instead of building a list of ALLOWED MAC addresses (ie - if you have 3 PCs, there are 3 MAC addresses you'd put in, unless you have multiple NICs etc) they expected you to build a list of NOT ALLOWED MAC addresses!!

A MAC address is 12 hex digits giving 281,474,976,710,656 possible combinations. So I'll just enter 281,474,976,710,653 MAC addresses shall I?? :eek: :)

I've got a one mac, one pc setup and I've used an SMC barricade for about a year now. Never really gave me any problems... EXCEPT FOR WITH MY PC. hahaha

I just got a linksys WRT54GS and its working like a charm. much more stable than the smc on the pc.

Oh but if you're looking for a cheap router, the DLink wireless G one (forgot the model number) can be bought for around $50 from staples after you price match it with futureshop.

http://www.pricenetwork.ca/forum/showthread.php?threadid=26579

why can't she use the express with the pc and mac? I thought it supported both??

It does. But the PC needs to be wired. To use the Express, i would have to buy a router just to plug it into.

Too complicated. Plus, she will never use wireless printing or Airtunes, so no need.

Thanks for everyones input.

I will give the D-Link a shot.

wow... No votes for NetGear?? I have had 2 and really no issues. I just got rid on my v2 only because I had to moved to a wired cnx for my VoIP phone. I now run a Linksys, but will hook up the AP Xpress when I move....

H!

It does, unless you need a wired connection.

then i suggest he gets an extreme base station :D That's what I had when I had a powerbook and a PC. Worked flawlessly.

apple all the way baby :D

But we ARE talking about IEEE standards here.

So an Apple extreme base station at CAD$250(Am I right?) vs a DLink router for $50.

I'd be going for the Dlink. In fact get two of them :)

Or am I missing something?

nope. you're not missing anything. when I do it. I do it right :D

Can't you just get a cheap used wireless card for the pc and buy the express and call it a day?

Use the D-Link 624 too. Cheap and works out of the box. I set it up on my PC (ethernet cable) and my iBook, with D-Link usb wireless adapter, found it right away, no problems. Can't comment on airport.

Get the Linksys WRT54g.

Because ... if there is a remote (no pun intended) chance that you might get an Airport Express in the future, it will be compatible with this router.

Then, the AE can act as a bridge for your network and it has proven to be compatible with this Linksys router.

Get the Linksys WRT54g.

Because ... if there is a remote (no pun intended) chance that you might get an Airport Express in the future, it will be compatible with this router.

Then, the AE can act as a bridge for your network and it has proven to be compatible with this Linksys router.

Why would it NOT be compatible with other IEEE devices? I'm not asking to be a jerk, I'm asking because I genuinely don't know :) What's so special about this WRT54g in this particular case?

Why would it NOT be compatible with other IEEE devices? I'm not asking to be a jerk, I'm asking because I genuinely don't know :) What's so special about this WRT54g in this particular case?

To be honest, I'm not sure why either. All I know is from I've read from the Airport Express user forum. I was looking here recently when I thought I might buy one. Seems like D-Link and others don't work well with AEX. If you do a search on router compatibility in that forum, you'll see what I'm talking about.:)

http://discussions.info.apple.com/webx?14@1017.oc1Da31WQof.329157@.6896bab3

don't bother getting the apple stuff... WAAAAAAY overpriced...

you can use any wireless router... just remember... 2.4GHz phones generally cut off the internet when you use them.

I've had success with the netgear WGT624 (currently on sale at Futureshop for $60 + taxes on $90) not cutting out the internet with 2.4ghz phones.

Personally... I'd stay away from linksys... I would go with DLink (support cdn companies) or go with Netgear...

both are quite affordable...

The WRT54G is a pretty sweet device.
Roughly $80, in which you get a Linux router with an easy to use web interface.

I had a netgear router for a bit, but got frustrated with making a change to an access rule, and have the whole device die, requiring a reset of the rules... or have intermittent power issues, and again, losing rules.

Several have written open source software for the device to add telnet support, FTP and HTTP native to the device (Albeit, only a few megabytes of space). Support for bridging to the AE has been added as well.

If you're not happy with the range, simply buy new antennae for the router from Linksys (6dB), or better yet, hit a website that will show you how to cheaply make your own (Seen reports of 20dB gain).

Oh, and I've never had an issue with rules getting corrupted or lost. Very stable router, that sits on top of my matching Vonage VOIP router.

I'll be setting up a wireless network for my parents soon (just convinced them to switch from a couple of crappy PCs). They've decided to go wireless, and I'd like to keep it as simple as possible. However, they've got an old Xerox multifunction printer/fax (RS232 interface) and a somewhat less old Lexmark inkjet (USB interface).

Is there a wireless router that I can plug either/both of these printers into and have it act as a network-print-server as well?

Thanks.

go for Airport Express.

it can act as a router, as well as a USB print server.
if you already have a router, you can use the AE as a bridge, very usefull to extend your wifi range and signal.