Comments on: On setting up an Apple Airport wifi network

By: Phil P

Phil P — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 19:33:56 +0000

I have a new i-Mac connected to BT internet via their router which has worked fine, until recently! I can now see the networks but can’t connect, its as if the WEP password is wrong, but its the one I have always used, very bizarre

By: Neil Mc

Neil Mc — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 07:15:54 +0000

Jane - I’ve been wireless for years now, pretty much since the first Airport came out, and am fairly wedded to the notion of being able to use a computer wherever I fancy. It makes a big difference to the utility of your computer and its connection.

Robin - feel your pain. But my experience (via friends - like Craig, above in the comments) of non-Airport systems is that they’re even worse

By: Robin Hamman

Robin Hamman — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 10:04:56 +0000

I share your frustrations with this Neil. I’m on my third Airport Extreme (the new version). The first one failed for unknown reasons after about a year and I returned the second because it behaved oddly only to find that the replacement behaves the same.

The new one is invisible to both of my mac book pros but isn’t, I gather from the flashing lights on my airport and cable modem at all hours of the day and night, invisible to my neighbours.

Now, I don’t mind having to manually tell my macs the name of my network, nor do I mind sharing my excessive bandwidth with my neighbours. But I do mind the fact that I have no control whatsoever over my Airport Extreme. If I set a password it crashes the airport. If I mess with any of the settings it crashes the airport. If I even try to give it a fancy name it crashes the airport. So I have an open wifi network not by choice but because I can’t get it to work otherwise.

Have you heard about any other options working well or are all wifi routers flakey like this?

By: Jane Howitt

Jane Howitt — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 22:18:25 +0000

Neil, thanks for that! So nice to get a straightforward explanation.

Though I was hoping for a less expensive answer! Hey ho.

Still, I suppose I need to work out whether it’s worth going wireless. Someone told me that you can lose the connection and lose data if you’re transfering files. Is that true?

Frankly, I’d love to get rid of ALL wires and cables.

By: Neil Mc

Neil Mc — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 20:30:16 +0000

Hi Jane - yes, you need an airport base station. You could get an Airport Express base station, into which you plug your Ethernet cable and then use Airport Setup Assistant to sort out. Our you could buy an Airport Extreme base station - faster, but more expensive, and no harder to set up. Despite the names of each gadget, both will work with the card in your iMac.

By: Jane Howitt

Jane Howitt — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 17:40:26 +0000

Great advice — and you might just be the person I need to help me with my wireless conumdrum! I think the thing has me confused before I’ve started because I don’t understand the basics.

I’m trying to connect to my iMac, wirelessly, to my new Sky Broadband. At the moment I’m using an ethernet cable and it’s OK.

I’ve got an AirPort Extreme card in my iMac. So … do I need the AirPort basestation as well? Don’t think I’ve quite grasped the basics, do you?

And I must agree with Craig — I had the devil of a time trying to network two macs through a Linksys router. Gave up in the end.

By: Craig McGill

Craig McGill — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 14:01:49 +0000

You think that’s bad. Try using Linksys on a mac setup. Was suggested to me on the basis of cost - hah! - ended up costing me more - and certainly more in terms of time as the initial configuration can’t be done on a mac as there’s no software for it (PC only).

I now have a setup with two Linksys boxes (one for wifi and one for Vonage phone) and the thing isn’t password protected and I don’t even want to dare going near it all to sort it out (but I really should).

By: chris

chris — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 07:59:31 +0000

Thank you - carefully del.icio.used for the next crisis!