[maximusbibicus]

OMG!

I am in pure heaven.

I have been a Mac user all my life. In the good times, and in the bad.

Now, i have taken the biggest step since i became a Mac user.

I HAVE AIRPORT!

This is totally going to change the way i use my computer. I don't have to worry about being couped in my cramped room. I am swing sitting on a sofa-swing in my backyard, and i can't get over how cool this is. The great thing is, there is no slow down at all. Surfing is at the same speed.

Enough blabbering. I have seen the light.

I will preach the wireless way to all that will listen.

Peter

 

[Chealion]

Congratulations! Personally, I went out and bought a wireless router (NetGear) and am just waiting for enough money to go purchase my laptop with an Airport Card.

Just a few questions, where is your base station set up and how good do you find your signal?

 

[emceepj]

isn't it great?!

i was very excited when i first got my airport card. i could surf wirelessly @ school, coffee shops, etc. in fact, i'm @ Seattle's Best Coffee in Yaletown using up bandwidth as we speak!

when my boyfriend got his 17" PB with an airport card i talked him into going wireless, so now i just open my ibook @ his place and away i go.

have fun!!

Phil

 

[maximusbibicus]

Chealion:

I have it located in my room, which is on the second floor of my house. So far i have tried it from the backyard, and from the family room, and have great signal strength.Almost always max signal. It has dipped down by one bar, once or twice, but thats it.

I have only had it ging for an hour. When i get back from the gym, i will experiment some more.

Peter

 

[Clockwork]

Do you just need the airport card to go wireless? Is the basestation just for people wanting to go the extra distance?

 

[monokitty]

Do you just need the airport card to go wireless? Is the basestation just for people wanting to go the extra distance?

A base station is required. That's where the wireless signal is sent to from the AirPort card. The base station is the part hooked up to the wall with your phone line cable or hi-speeed cable in the wall.

 

[Fox]

A base station is required. That's where the wireless signal is sent to from the AirPort card. The base station is the part hooked up to the wall with your phone line cable or hi-speeed cable in the wall.

Not quite right, Lars. A cheaper alternative is to put an Airport card in a Mac that's hooked up to the internet and use it as a software basestation for a remote Mac that has another Airport card. I did this for awhile before finding a cheap wireless router ($100 NetGear MR314). The router (or Airport Basestation) does have some advantages over the software basestation approach, but the latter is cheaper and it works.

 

[PosterBoy]

The great thing is, there is no slow down at all. Surfing is at the same speed.


That's because the internet doesn't come through that fast. YOu would notice a difference if you shared a lot of files between to computers though.

-Ethernet (on most mac models) is 100 Mbps
-AirPort Extreme (for reference) is 54 Mbps
-AirPort is 11Mbps
-High Speed Internet is anywhere from 512 Kbps to 3 Mbps dependnig on your service.

As an example, when I want to back a lot of stuff up to do a reformat I connect the iBook and iMac together with an ethernet cable because it is ten times faster.

--PB

 

[maximusbibicus]

PosterBoy: Agreed

File transfer between two machines is much slower. I knew that coming in. However i thought there would be some slowdowns with internet usage, something! But no. It is PERFECT.

I am gonna to have a blast with this. Haven't had much time to play with this. So tomorrow is when the fun starts.

Peter

 

[iTony]

Went the Airport route a few years ago and never regretted it. It all stemmed from wanting to run a RJ45 from one floor to another. I told my wife I could drill the floor/ceiling and it'd cost next to nothing, or we could go Apple's wireless way for ~$5-600.

For some reason, my wife was willing to spend the money

So, no I have a base station hooked up to a iBook, PB1400, and my Beige G3 running a Buffalo Ethernet Converter. The cool thing with the Beige is the HD is just big enough to fit OS X, but I have it hooked up to my Sawtooth that has 6GB worth of iTunes

Tony

 

[Ohenri]

File Transfer over wifi is about as enjoyable as watching your computer render some complex 3d. The big files need tranfer/backing up via a hardwire conxn.

H!

 

[parousia]

We have the Snow Base Station, we have been running it now for about a year. My wife uses her DELL wirelessly to connect to her companies VPN. It didn'y work before 10.2 but now it works great and she loves sitting in the sun in the backyard or sitting in bed working or just surfing the net....

meanwhile I am still connected bt ethernet cable straight from the basestation.

But at least I finally got my new eMac... 1 GHz is sure a hell of alot faster than my 500MHz G3 indigo iMac.

Parousia

 

[Etaoin Shrdlu]

How easy is it, really, for the signal to be tapped by nefarious evil-doers? Could Boris Batinov or his grandson be lurking nearby stealing your bank log-in code?

 

[RubberGorilla]

Yah, in early 2000 I bought a Tangerine iBook and two Airport Cards, one for the iBook and one for my G4 to act as a software base station.

When I showed it to my friends, especially my PC networking "guru" friend they were all blown away. "Those pages are cached, right?". "Nope".

In 2000 it cost me $300 Canadian to get set up. That was about the same price as a good router and cabling. I don't use the iBook too much anymore unfortunately. I think my fiancee is going to inherit it as her email/internet machine.

 

[kps]

I find that after going wireless, I couldn't imagine going back.

G4 Desktop
12" Powerbook
Dell Inspiron Notebook
D-Link 614+ router
ADSL modem

 

[CubaMark]

One hint for WiFi sharing...

First, our setup:

DSL -->Five-port router.
Five-Port router --> some macs, some hubs.

One eMac is on a hub, and is doing Internet Sharing. This works fine for most sites, but we couldn't POP our mail or access any HTTPS sites (e.g., hotmail).

Solution? Turn off the built-in firewall on the eMac. We're already behind a firewall with the router, so it's not really necessary. (I'm sure someone will post saying all we needed to do was enable port x or y, but this was quick and easy).

You can also print to a networked printer wirelessly if the eMac, under "Sharing", has Printer Sharing enabled.

Happy surfing!
M

 

[maximusbibicus]

KPS: I couldn't agree more. I have only had the set up for one day, and am amazed.

As for security, the AEBS uses 128bit encrption, and is password protected. I am not aware of any issues.

Can anyone else offer some feedback on that?

Peter