Can I use Airport Express without ethernet?

mattwolfmatt said:

At my work they already have wireless throughout the building, plus I have an ethernet cable in my office. Setting up my own wireless network is not allowed - it would be easily discovered. Can I plug this in the wall and just use it for wireless printing and wireless itunes?

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Absolutely

In other words, can it communicate with my Macbook Pro without the ethernet cable? Will my "mini network" be viewable (not necessarily accessible) by those in the hallway searching for available networks?
Thanks!

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As a wireless network, it will be visible, but you can secure it so no one can access your network.

You'll have to temporalrly plug in an ethernet cable to set things up.

Then just set the express to create a wireless network, once you have the wireless connection established, you can unplug the cable.

Or you can create a wireless network from you laptop, and have the express join that.

You'll may want to disable the ethernet port on the express, sometimes it gets cranky if it doesn't see a network. With the second option, it shouldn't be an issue that there is no cable plugged in.

I have one set to join my home network, so i have printing and music in a room that isn't wired.

ggjstudios said:

As a wireless network, it will be visible, but you can secure it so no one can access your network.

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You could plug the Airport Express into the ethernet jack and then configure it to NOT broadcast its SSID - it wouldn't be easily visible to random computers that way.

Alternatively, you could plug it into the ethernet jack and turn the WiFi radio off - and then let it just serve AirTunes and printing to anyone on the main network.