Airport base station or express?

[ElWardo]

Hi all;
I have a new iMac and a Dell Inspiron laptop running XP. I had a netgear router but it doesn't work anymore. (It is several years old and the laptop can't find my home network anymore, so I assume its not working)

Given this setup - iMac plugged into the DSL line and the laptop wireless, should I get an airport base station or airport extreme? Or is there something else I need?

Thanks.

 

[Jacquesass]

You don't need anything else - you can use the iMac as your base station.

System Preferences -> Sharing -> Internet Sharing

Choose "Share your connection from -Ethernet-" and "To computers using -AirPort-". Under AirPort Options (at the bottom of the screen) you can choose what to name your network, whether to use WEP security, what your network password will be, etc. One UI quirk is that you need to select Internet Sharing by highlighting it and NOT clicking the checkbox in order to change the settings - clicking the checkbox turns it on (and greys out the settings).

It works pretty well, although the range probably won't equal the range of an Airport Extreme.

 

[ElWardo]

Airport base station or express?

Thanks. I gave it a try but the laptop doesn't see the new network. Do I need to do anything on the laptop with Windows Network Wizard? And what does it mean when the Mac sharing dialogue box says "computers on your local network can access your computer at:my-computer.local?