USB Ethernet or AirPort Express?

although n would be a bit faster than g, the airport express works well, and yeah its a much better idea than the dongle. Its a MBA, the whole point is to be able to have it on your lap anywhere in your house, or on the go.

Get the express.

smagdy said:

onnect wireslessly .. Right?

What do u think of that?
I know its more expensive but does it work well? I think its only problem that it doesnt support N-Draft yet!

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Absolutely a great idea. Even in a Hotel room, why would you want to be tied to the cable? This is the way I am doing it...

Regards,

C

This is a big question for me

So this is the big question I have. Has anyone actually used an Airport Express on the road?

One of the reasons that I holding back on a MBA is its lack of an ethernet port. Using an Airport Express as a substitute sounds like pretty good idea. Using the Airport Express actually sounds better as I could use the laptop anywhere in the hotel room not just near the ethernet port.

But will the connection to the hotel server work through the Airport Express?

For example, I am in a hotel room that offers ethernet networking. Today I would plug my old laptop in using a network cable. Open the browser. A hotel website usually comes up asking me to OK the charge and/or agree to their terms of use. I do, and I am off and surfing.

So here is the question.

If I had a Macbook Air and an Airport Express, could I just plug the Airport Express into the wall, then connect it to the ethernet port in the hotel room? When I boot up my Macbook Air and open Safari would the same hotel website pop up? Is it that simple? Has anyone done this with any MacBook? What were your experiences?

wehokev said:

If I had a Macbook Air and an Airport Express, could I just plug the Airport Express into the wall, then connect it to the ethernet port in the hotel room? When I booted up my Macbook Air and opened Safari would the same hotel website pop up? Is it that simple? Has anyone done this with any Macbook? What were your experiences?

Click to expand...

So it should be.

I notice ad-hoc networks all of the time in hotels. Either they are laptops which have been turned into routers as well or people have plugged in their own wireless routers.

You tell the wireless router to get DHCP on the external port and you won't get access until you use a computer to go through the hotel's website.

The hotel has no clue what is piping it the HTTP request - it just intercepts it and does not let it through until you authenticate yourself.

Wirelessly posted (iPhone: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/420.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.0 Mobile/4A93 Safari/419.3)

I do it all the time with my mbp even though it has an Ethernet port and it works great. Apart from the fact that you can be wireless you have the advantage that you're behind a NAT firewall and more protected from other machines on the network

smagdy said:

Great that I canceled my USB Ethernet then though it helped in just 1 day less for MBA delivery but better than nothing..

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smagdy, great to see you here on these forums, I just got my SSD today and will be selling at least one TZ, if not two, pretty soon!

smagdy said:

I canceled the USB Ethernet to let my MBA get delivered faster..

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I honestly don't believe that makes a difference.

I ordered both together and the ethernet thing shipped and arrived last saturday. I'm still waiting for the MBA- it's waiting for a plane in Shanghai by the looks for it.

Using an Airport Express is an excellent idea. It just won't work for me in some situations (In huge long ass meetings where all they give us is an ethernet cord). But if you have places were you CAN plug in a little router and get the ethernet cord to it, it'll work great for you.

I would recommend for travelling a wireless router that is MUCH smaller than the airport express: the belkin or d-link travel routers. The linksys travel router is good too, but slightly bigger than the other two.

PDE said:

I would recommend for travelling a wireless router that is MUCH smaller than the airport express: the belkin or netgear travel routers. The linksys travel router is good too, but slightly bigger than the other two.

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Would you mind linking the one you are talking about? I have found they come with power transformers etc which is annoying to me. I like the Express because it is a single unit. Having said that, I would love to find a smaller unit!

Regards,

C

The Ethernet adapter is also useful for remote disc. It is hard to beat a 10/100 connection connected directly to the remote disc host.

Plus, we're only taking $30 here, and I'm sure it'll come in handy, so I say both to the original question.

Catch said:

Would you mind linking the one you are talking about? I have found they come with power transformers etc which is annoying to me. I like the Express because it is a single unit. Having said that, I would love to find a smaller unit!

Regards,

C

Click to expand...

Actually, this d-link is my favourite, but it does have an adapter even though it's very small. The thing itself is tiny, just a fraction of the AAE:

http://www.jr.com/JRProductPage.process?Product=4000706

Belkin has one that is almost identical. And the linksys one is: http://www.jr.com/JRProductPage.process?Product=4000706

travel router

I bought a Linksys WTR54GS ver 2.1 a few months back (was only $38). At the time, it had the best reviews, has no separate power supply (prongs pop out of the unit to plug straight into the wall). Also can serve as a wireless bridge, but the network it's bridging has to be unsecured (in that case, you have to connect your laptop directly to the secured network). It can create a WPA or WEP network.

I've been happy with it - mostly just using it to create a wireless network in my home (the primary wireless router is too far away, and I have a cable run from it to my living area).

wehokev said:

So this is the big question I have. Has anyone actually used an Airport Express on the road?

One of the reasons that I holding back on a MBA is the lack of an ethernet port. Using an Airport Express as a substitute sounds like pretty good substitute. Actually better using the Airport Express sounds better as I could use the laptop anywhere in the room not just near the ethernet port.

For example, I am in a hotel room that offers ethernet networking. Today I would plug my old laptop in using a network cable. Open the browser. A hotel website usually comes up asking me to OK the charge and/or agree to their terms of use. I do, and I am off and surfing.

So here is the question.

If I had a Macbook Air and an Airport Express, could I just plug the Airport Express into the wall, then connect it to the ethernet port in the hotel room? When I booted up my Macbook Air and opened Safari would the same hotel website pop up? Is it that simple? Has anyone done this with any Macbook? What were your experiences?

Click to expand...

Yeah I do it all the time. Works perfectly. And of course if my wife is with me on a vaca trip, we can both surf wirelessly off my "network".

But, I have never tried it with a corporate LAN. Like when I am visiting one of our other offices. I have a feeling it won't work though...?

Just in Case

I went ahead and burned the extra 29 bucks on the Ethernet adapter. I plan on using my MBA with WIFI as often as I can but sometimes I need the LAN connectivity. some clients I visit only have Ethernet connections and not Wifi, but I do have a Verizon broadband card for those times when I away. HMMM come to think of it, I may not need this 29 dollar part after all. But, for those 3 times a year when I do, i will have it.

smagdy said:

Sorry, I didn't get why do we need Ethernet Adapter for using Remote Disc ?

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You don't "need" it, but it is faster. Even at 10/100 Ethernet can still be faster than 802.11n. This is especially true if your MBP only has 802.11g like mine does.