air port, how to install?

[slipper]

hey guys, my sis just got a new imac and i currently have an old imac 350mhz. how excatly do i install the air port? so far we have the base and one extreme card for the new imac. what would i need for my older imac to be compatible.

also what are the pluses of the air port as compared to a regular router? besides no wires. faster? slower?

 

[ftaok]

Re: air port, how to install?

Originally posted by slipper
hey guys, my sis just got a new imac and i currently have an old imac 350mhz. how excatly do i install the air port? so far we have the base and one extreme card for the new imac. what would i need for my older imac to be compatible.

also what are the pluses of the air port as compared to a regular router? besides no wires. faster? slower?

For your iMac (old), you'll need the Airport Card and the Airport Adapter . The installation instructions probably come with the product.

As for the advantages of Airport (or WiFi in general) over a router, the only real advantage is wireless. The speeds over Airport are slower than a wired router. But to me, the wireless aspect of it outweighs the price premium and loss of speed.

 

[jxyama]

most of the time, bottleneck in speed will be the DSL/cable modem, not the wireless vs. wired ethernet.

 

[strider42]

Re: air port, how to install?

Originally posted by slipper
hey guys, my sis just got a new imac and i currently have an old imac 350mhz. how excatly do i install the air port? so far we have the base and one extreme card for the new imac. what would i need for my older imac to be compatible.

also what are the pluses of the air port as compared to a regular router? besides no wires. faster? slower?

not all 350 mhz iMacs can use airport. The first generation could, the second couldn't. check everymac.com to make sure your computer is airport capable at all. If not, you'd need some kind of USB adaptor or something.

 

[slipper]

i reaed the original box and it said something about it being airport ready. thanks for the heads up though

 

[BDesign]

Is my Mac Air port extreme ready?

I have a similar question...How do I find out if my G4 is Air Port Extreme ready? I opened it up and the holder for where it goes is rectangular, compared to square like in my Mac at work. Does this mean it is ready?

 

[mactastic]

Only some macs made after Jan. '03 are AE ready. And even then only the high end ones boast AE for a while. I guess that would include the entire G5 line, the PowerBooks, the iMac, and now the G4 iBook. Your computer would have to be fairly new to be AE ready. My TiBook from last November isn't even AE capable, although I wish someone would make a card that combines the "g" standard with Bluetooth and would fit in my TiBook.

And as someone pointed out earlier, the speed bottleneck is your internet connection, not your AE base station. I doubt you are getting more than 1.5Mbps internet, and your AE has 54Mbps of speed to deal with it. The problem comes in when you try to transfer large files, or large amounts of files, from one computer to another over the wireless network. If you need to do that however, just connect an ethernet cable (doesn't need to be a crossover cable either if it's between 2 fairly new macs) between them. Or if it is a constant problem, get a 10/100 hub and connect it to the one ethernet port on the AE. Leave cables at the locations where file transfers are likely to happen, and just plug in. Of course you could always go to Firewire Target Disk Mode too, and that's 400Mbps. Or if you are using the Power line, it can be Gigabit wired. Now thats some fast transfering!

Edit: Here's the link to Apples list of AE compatible computers.