Airport Status Menu icons - what do they mean?

[bronxred]

hey all!

I was on the Acela coming home from a family visit in D.C. (I'm not rich, but I splurged for fun...it was worth it!) and had a new Airport Card in my iBook. I looked up at the Airport Status Menu and instead of the bars indicating signal strength, I saw a gray cone with a little train symbol in it. "how classy!" I thought. "Amtrak has a network on the train and their own little train logo appears in the Status Menu. neat!" so OK g'head and have your laugh. ;->

now I'm at home, and I see the same little icon, but no trains are around for miles. (unless you count the subway!)

so my question is this. I'm guessing it's supposed to be an ethernet plug? or what? I can't find info anywhere on what the different symbols mean. I've seen one with an arrow that goes straight up through the gray bars. no idea what that is neither.

does anyone have the low down? is there a chart online somewhere? could not find in Apple Help, Support, etc.

thanks for your help!
J

PS...I hope my ignorance was entertaining. I've had fun with it. but I really wanna know!!! ;->

mine:

 

[iJon]

that means you have created your own wireless network or have connected to someone else who created their own wireless network (basically skipping the base statoin and making your computer into one)

iJon

 

[bronxred]

how did I / they do that?

does that mean I have some kind of access to that network? or they have access to mine?

I'm assuming 'NO' on the latter since I don't have any sharing turned on, but I'm on a wired home ethernet network. would love to know if this makes our network vulnerable.

how would I go about seeing if I'm connected to their network? I can't connect to the Internet when I disconnect my ethernet, for example.

it's not that I want to hack into anyone's stuff...I just want to know how this all works...why I would not see signal-level bars, etc. the Apple information was sparse.

thanks!
J

PS...here's another symbol I don't know (which I've seen on someone else's setup...not mine):

 

[iJon]

well now i am as interested as you cause i have never seen the arrow, thats pretty neat. im just always used to the typical 5 bars of signal strength.

iJon

 

[Sedulous]

That arrow in the airport icon means you are using your airport card to share your network connection with anyone else with a wireless card. Effectively it means your computer is acting like an airport base station.

 

[bronxred]

nothing more?

thx for the info guys...it helps!

but does no one have anything more to say about my other question(s)? how to connect to a network like this if my iBook detects it, etc? (see previous post.)

thx so much...
J