Tips on Computer Technology By: Bill Michling
Welcome back, I hope those of you who are starting back to school are ready…and….willing.
Last week I talked about the new Apple G4 Cube versus a Pentium III computer.
This week I am going to talk about my personal experience with installing the new version of Airport wireless networking.
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Are you stringing wire for a network? Do you wish you could have more than one computer sharing that one precious Internet account? If you answered yes to any of the above, then the article is especially for you.
** Wireless Networking
Airport is Apple’s hardware and software solution for wireless networking. What is wireless networking anyway? What advantages does it have over a wired network? Does it have any disadvantages?
We will discuss this and a lot more in this article.
** Airport hardware & software
The Airport hardware consists of cards for Airport ready Macintosh computers. This includes almost all iMacs, G3 PowerBooks, G3 blue/white towers, and all G4s to date. With an Airport card installed, two or more Macintosh computers can share file information and printers.
The best way to share a single Internet account is with the Airport base station. The Airport base station has ethernet and RJ11 phone ports. You can connect the base station to a cable modem or DSL router via the ethernet. If you only have a dial up account, you can use the built in 56k modem in the Airport base station. The base station can serve up to 10 clients with its present version.
This means you could have up to 10 Macintosh computers sharing a single Internet account as well as sharing files and printers, all without stringing network wiring! This could add up to be savings!
The latest version of the Airport software is already installed on the new iMacs and G4s. The latest version is 1.2 and can be downloaded from Apple’s website.
New features in AirPort 1.2 AirPort 1.2 provides enhanced performance, compatibility, stability, and functionality. AirPort 1.2 includes the complete software base station feature. The AirPort 1.2 base station software now supports closed networks.
By choosing to create a closed network, you can hide the name of the network created by the AirPort Base Station. Users must know the exact network name to join the AirPort network, providing an additional level of security.
For improved compatibility, the AirPort 1.2 base station software has a revised default configuration. The new default configuration does not distribute IP addresses (DHCP) or share a single IP address (NAT) on Ethernet, and disables AirPort-to-Ethernet bridging.
Although AirPort 1.2 has a revised default configuration, existing base station settings will not be changed for those users who update from AirPort version 1.1. From this new baseline, users now have the option to customize bridging, DHCP, and NAT on a per port basis to meet their specific ISPs requirements. These options are enabled/disabled through the Admin Utility’s Network tab.
** Setting up Airport for the First Time
OK, now that you know about the hardware and software, you want to know how easy is it to set up, right?
I found it is very easy to setup. My test set up consisted of three new iMacs, and an old beige G3 desktop (more about this later), as well as the Airport base station.
The cards come in their own individual box. There is an instruction booklet and a CD included in the box as well. Since all but one of the Macs I had were new, I did not need the CD or the booklet. It is nice to know it is there though, if I did need it.
The Airport base station came in its own box which is a little larger. It includes the base station, booklet, CD, and power supply. The power supply is one of those calculator style power supplies. Again I did not need the CD as the software installed on the iMacs include ALL the Airport software.
** Putting it all Together
First I installed the Airport cards into the iMacs. With the new iMacs, this is very easy. In the back of the iMac is a door, just turn the screw from locked to open and you can see right where the Airport card goes. Make sure you ground yourself onto a metal area of the iMac, before handling the card. After attaching the antenna to the card, the card just slips into the guides and snaps in. So simple, no tools needed. To install the cards into the 3 iMacs took about 15 minutes.
Since I had the cards in the iMacs, I thought I would try the computer to computer wireless connection first. So I powered up all three iMacs.
I then ran the airport software on one of the iMacs. Just go to the popup menu and choose computer to computer and you are good to go.
If at this point you want to share files, then activate file sharing like you usually do. You can then go to the chooser and share files just like you would on a wired network! So simple, so neat, and so efficient and fast..
I can see by the counter we have hit the limit for this column.
Come back next week for the conclusion of setting up the airport and how the base station works. You can also check how strong the signal is, but that will have to wait for next week.
Have a wonderful week.
See you here and on the web next week.
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Bill Michling is a computer professional and welcomes any comments or questions you may have. Just send email to: bill@mespn.com or michling@usa.net.
You may also go to Marianas Electronics and ask help from the friendly staff there, or call them at: 234-5424, Just ask for Annie, Jun or Joseph.
For world access this Wednesday column is also on the Saipan Tribune website at: (http://www.saipantribune.com) or at the mespn.com site at: (http://mespn.com/forms/tech_Articles/ ), now connected to the Internet via broadband T1+…..
