At 10:23 PM -0800 12/21/05, Amanda Ward wrote:
Hi All,
I've decided to go wireless with my iBook-500, but I don't have a
base unit yet. Just put an Airport (original) card in my 'Book and
it works fine... seems someone is running an open wireless network
nearby! :)
Anyway... I went window shopping for equipment over the weekend and
was amazed at what is available. Thus my question. Having an old
Airport card, is there any equipment I should stay away from? I
mean, I assume an older Airport base would work and the Airport
control panel says I'm accessing either a netgear or linksys
network. Would these work as well? And what of 802.11b vs 802.11g?
I'm pretty comfortable with wired networks, but there's a =steep=
learning curve for wireless.
Best thing is to start with the simplest setup, no encryption and use
all the defaults except the SSID name. Get it working and then keep
activating the features you want.
The one thing I always suggest is to survey the wireless environment.
Download MacStumbler and run it. It will tell you what channels are
in use and how strong the signal is. Pick a channel that is as
little used as you can.
A common mistake people make is to buy the router and just use all
the defaults. This often means several routers are on the same
channel in a given area. That is a great way to kill range. The
other thing is leaving the default SSID.
I've done some war driving and found a large percentage of routers
are operating on their default settings, or most of them.
Your iBook can only take an original Airport card (802.11b) so stick
with a "b" router unless there is something else that might go
wireless. Don't worry about the future, by then a "g" (or "n", "x",
"y" or "z") router will likely be cheaper than what a "b" is now.
I steer people away from Linksys, I've heard bad things about their
reliability and features. D-Link seems okay as is Netgear.
I'm using a Motorola "g" but that is because it's rather full
featured including some unusual features I needed. I've got a Belkin
which is okay if slightly flakey. They did do a rather hare brained
thing on another router, it redirected web URLs to some other site
(they gave up on that fast). My SMC works okay but it's range isn't
as good as either the Belkin or Motorola.
Airports are good but they aren't cheap.
--
Clark Martin
Redwood City, CA, USA
Macintosh / Internet Consulting
"I'm a designated driver on the Information Super Highway"
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