Hi,
There is a usb adapter that connects the Apple remote to a usb port,
for use as Ester said or for a non-intel Mac.
How do you set up proxy sta?
Thanks for listening,
Alex,
On 13-Dec-08, at 11:49 AM, Esther wrote:
Hi Scott,
I'll append a few comments to Woody's reply
On Dec 13, 2008, at 8:24 AM, Woody Jackson wrote:
On Dec 13, 2008, at 10:06 AM, Scott Rutkowski wrote:
Firstly does the airport express recieve it's power via a plugg
pack which you plugg in to the wall outlet near your stereo to
recieve power?
It is the power brick itself, the express is about 4 inch by 4 inch
and about an inch thick.
Esther: The AirPort Express is just slightly larger than the power
adapters for the MacBook and MacBook Pro. It has the same kind of
plug attachment that you can insert directly into an outlet. You
also used to be able to get a small desktop stand like the Griffin
AirBase, which basically allowed you to pull the plug off and slide
the AirPort Express into a holder that supported it at a 45 degree
angle, so that it just socketed into a regular mains power connector
at the base. I think these have been recently discontinued, because
I picked up a few of these at $4.95 a while ago. These just make it
easier to access the AE and its ports, and also, since the wireless
signal broadcasts from the side away from the plug, gives better
signal strength than plugging it into a plug at ground level.
Secondly once you have used the airport utility to configure the
device, I assume you simply use the remote speakers option in
iTunes and the music you select in iTunes simply streams over your
network to the airport express which is located near your stereo?
Yes. once the express is on the network when you launch itunes
there will be a new pop up menu in the lower right area of the
itunes browser that you could select as many "airtunes" express
connected speakers you desire. With the addition of a software
called Air Foil you could stream any audio from your computer
Esther: Yes, you can assign a name for each location that you have
an AirPort Express. It's also possible to extend the range of your
AirPort network by adding on additional AirPort Express units.
Actually, I've read that in the new AirPort Express with Draft N
connectivity there's a new option for extending any wireless
network. (This isn't the case with the older model AirPort Express
that I have; in order to extend wireless networks through WDS, you
had to use compatible wireless network hardware, which generally
meant another AirPort device). Excerpt from "Take Control of Your
802.11n AirPort Network", section on AirPort Express extras:
<begin quote>
CONNECT TO ANY BASE STATION
The AirPort Express with Draft N contains a special, lightly docu-
mented mode that allows it to connect wirelessly to any Wi-Fi network,
not just other Apple base stations, and share the connection it
creates
via Ethernet. This mode, called ProxySTA by Apple but
not mentioned under that name in Apple’s documentation, is handy
for using the Express N in circumstances where you can’t control how
the network works.
Music streaming and printer sharing: These functions work
no differently with ProxySTA than they do when you use them with
Wireless Distribution System (WDS) or connect the base station via
Ethernet to the rest of a network.
With ProxySTA, Ethernet clients—computers connected directly or
multiple computers connected via an Ethernet switch—must obtain a
DHCP address through a passthrough connection on the network that
the Express has joined.
<snip> instructions for setting up ProxySTA mode
<end quote>
Also there's no way to somehow use the iMac remote to control
iTunes out near the stereo is there?
You could not control the speakers beyond volume issues.
Esther: You could control iTunes using a Keyspan Express Remote at
the AirPort Express (AE) location. The AE has a USB port so you
could connect up remote printer sharing. (This is actually somewhat
limited, because while you get the printer functions shared through
the wireless network, you typically don't get the additional
features supported in shared mode if you have an all-in-one printer
that also does scanning, copying, or faxing). If you're just using
this for music streaming you can plug in the receiver for an
Infrared Remote, like the Keyspan unit.
The stereo is about 20 metres away in another room.
There would be no way of using a macbook to control the iTunes
library on the iMac to which the airport express is connected
would there?
The airport express is connected to the network not a computer.
iTunes allows the sharing of libraries on other computers, all
computers can take turns using airtunes.
Esther: Actually, there should probably be other ways to control
this wirelessly, apart from the Keyspan Remote solution. Apple's
App Store made available a free "Remote" app that allows any iPod
Touch or iPhone to control iTunes wirelessly through any playlists
in your library. So it should be possible to get other devices that
will similarly control iTunes through the wireless network.
I am thinking the macbook could be near the airport express and
the music would stream via the macbook and this would also work.
Is there any kind of lag or any brake up while the music is being
streamed via airport express?
All computers should be on your local area network. All computers
should have access to airtunes. Connected is connected. Streaming
of audio should be fine if your network is healthy.
Esther: I've heard this works really well. The cases where there
may be some audio dropouts all seem to be instances where people are
using external drives hooked up for PC sharing as well, and where
the music has been added to the iTunes library, but where iTunes is
not allowed to manage or organize the library, or to keep it in the
default area, so that the music can be easily controlled by other
music player applications. Even then, skips or dropouts only seem
to occur when the music libraries get large.
Also, as previously mentioned, AirFoil ($25 from Rogue Amoeba),
allows you stream other types of audio through your AirPort Express
network, and even some video streaming. I don't know how this
affects iTunes streaming performance.
Woody
Cheers,
Esther
