airport & apple macs

[philippat]

there's bound to be someone here who knows how this works...!

We'll shortly have 2 laptops (but no desktop). How do I sort out a wireless network over the house?

What bits do I need to buy? Does one laptop need to be tied down to the phone point?

I think one will need to be configured as the server, in order to run the other one as a PC on the "network". As long as one PC has the wherewithall to be a server machine (can still be used as a normal laptop) then you just need the wireless network / PC cards. If you need internet access, then yes the server machine will be the one plugged into the phone port.

There's BOUND to be somone else more techy than I am to put you straight!

Don't understand the thread title though? Have you got Macs rather than pcs?

It all depends on what you want to do - if you just want 2 laptops to talk to each other then you only need to ensure that both the laptops have either built-in wireless networking or that you buy a couple of wireless network cards from somewhere like PC World (linksys, netgear and belkin are good choices). You then configure the laptops to work in something called "adhoc" mode.

However if you want to share an internet connection then you have different options depending on whether you have a dial-up (phone) or a broadband (adsl or cable) connection.

With the dial-up option you will need to leave one laptop connected to the phone line and use something called Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) which is built into the networking bits of Windows XP and variants. This means that when the first laptop is connected to the internet, the second one can piggy-back it's connection and use it at the same time.

With a broadband connection the most convenient way to go is to buy an adsl or cable modem with built in wireless router - this is basically a box that plugs either into the cable connection or the ADSL phone point and sits there permanently connected to the internet. This then means that either of the wireless laptops can connect to it and access the internet, independant of each other. The laptops will work in something called "infrastructure" mode. but thats more jargon!!!

Windows XP is pretty easy to setup for wireless these days - the only thing I would strongly recommend is to change the wireless id to something else and ensure that the security settings are enabled - this will at least stop the casual drive-by snooper!

hope that sheds some light

by the way as much as I would like to take credit for the above, my dh done it all

yo guys, she's talking about macs, not pc's. I don't have airport, but do have networked macs through a hub. Are you on system 10? If so, it's super super easy. The only problem is that sometimes the wireless thing just doesn't work as well as you would like (a bit like cordless phones that don't always get good reception). Anyway, do your laptops already have airport cards? I think you will have to buy the cards for both laptops. If you look on apple's website under support, you will find lots and lots of information on how to do everything. I'm fairly sure, that neither laptop needs to be tied to the phone point, but rather it's the airport hub that is tied to the phone point.

I have got a mac with airport card. I do not have to be tied to the phoneline as it is the airport base station is tied to the router which is tied to broadband. It was easy to set up and works pretty well. Airport is not only restricted to macs as dh can use it with his pc (with the wireless connection) also.
Airport has the facility to let you remote print if you have the correct printer.
HTH

You do not need to attach either computer to your phone line. You can set up a network in this way, but to be honest there's no point because the computer you use as a server is stuck in the corner of the room by the phone socket and has to be switched on at all times to ensure instant availability for the 'wireless' machine.

Bellie has pretty much nailed it - an Apple Airport Extreme base station is the easiest way for you to connect wirelessly, especially if your laptops are Macs (Airport works equally well with PCs though). You basically switch it on and off you go, and both computers can go wireless.

Airport is not the cheapest option however. You can get other kinds of 'Wireless Router' (for that is what an Airport is) - the one most of my IT techy type mates would recommend is the Linksys WRT54G (about half the price of an Airport Extreme Base Station). Bear in mind though, that routers are still generally viewed as specialist hardware, not consumer, and they are not always easy to configure initially - Airport is, however, designed for consumers so is easy to get going.

If you go for a router other than the Airport, I would not recommend an all-in-one ADSL modem and router. All you're doing is putting two seperate pieces of technology in one box, and ensuring that when either the modem component or the router component fails, you have to replace the lot. I understand there can be other complications too but as I've never set one up I can't comment.

Now, as for the laptops, make sure that they are equipped with Airport Extreme wireless networking cards already, and not merely 'Airport Ready' - Apple likes to advertise all its computers this way, but all 'Airport Ready' means is it has a slot where you can attach a network card and a little aerial to help it communicate with the base. An Airport Extreme card is really just a Wireless Network Card of the type Jenkel is describing, but designed for Apple computers. They will 'talk' to whichever wireless router you buy, because wireless routers essentially all 'talk' the same language.

So, as to what you need to buy:

1. A microfilter, which plugs in to your phone socket. You will already have one of these if you're on broadband.

2. An ADSL modem with an ethernet port. USB will not do. Unfortunately, most broadband internet service providers' free ADSL modems are USB-only, which is a bit sad and ridiculous, seeing as ethernet is designed for this sort of thing and USB isn't. But there you go. An Ethernet port looks like a telephone socket, except it's bigger. It may be labelled 'RG45'. If your modem doesn't have one of these, you will need to buy one that does.

3. A Wireless Router. A good model for performance and price is the Linksys WRT54G. Best buy for sheer ease of use is the Apple Airport Extreme Base Station.

4. Airport Extreme cards installed in all the computers you wish to roam wirelessly round your house with.

Put the microfilter in the phone socket, put the modem in the microfilter and then attach the Airport Extreme base station to the modem. At this point you might have to connect one of the laptops to the base station by ethernet cable in order to access its setup screen - I'm not sure on that, but there will be instructions in the box! Thereafter, however, you will be wire-free.

Hope this is useful! If you need any more specialist help, I have some friends over at Cable Forum who have oodles of experience in setting this sort of stuff up. They'll be happy to help.

Oi! DH - get offa my forum!

Awwww, I wanna talk about computers.

ooo Muddahubby I could have some Mac/PC questions for you....... can I ask?

Ask away ... I'm non an IT pro but I've used a Mac for quite a while, I might be able to help.

philippat, are they new? They probably have the Airport card in them if so and will give you details on how to set up a wireless network. You don't have to have a separate wireless router, but then one of your laptops will be 'stuck' to the phone line. You can still use it though for anything and everything, just won't be able to drag it around with you.

It's really easy to set up. I've set up networks myself (am not a computer guru or anything) just by following the directions. So try that first.

If you like music, you might consider getting an airport express, too. You can attach it to your receiver and listen to iTunes through your stereo system!

muddahubby, you are a sweet and wonderful person, thank you so much for that full and complete explanation, the non-usb modem bit was hugely useful especially. Thank you everyone

I've got 6 macs ( 3 laptops and 2 Imacs and a big thingy in DH's office, a studio display ofsome huge size) connected to broadband via a netgear router. Dead simple if I can do it! Every new mac Ihave bought has an airport card preinstalled,I just turn it on and hey, it says do Iwant to join the netgear network, cool!

It is great when I take my mac laptop away, as I did this last few days in Paris, DD is at Uni there and knows all the places she can surf for free by finding a hotspot!