Airport Extreme Questions: Multiple Macs, printer, and external hd

[cheapa55]

I just purchased an airport extreme and have a few questions:

1. Do I need to install the Airport utility in each mac? One speed is 270, another one I'm only getting 108-122.

2. For an external HD for Time Machine backups, does the HD have to be a 'mac-ready' external HD? If not, can I just buy ANY external and formatted it for mac?

3. To attach a printer AND the external HD, I need a usb hub correct? Anyone know if the self powered hubs will work with the printer and external HD or do I need to get a powered usb hub? Any suggestions?

Thank you in advance

 

[Spreken]

1. No you don't need to worry about installing Airport utility on more then one computer as its used for set up of apples wireless gear.

2. You can buy mac ready and save yourself all of 5 minutes. But any drive that you can format to mac OS extended format should work. If your going to back up across the network with a drive attached to an airport extreme apple doesn't actually state that you can but it is possible, not really sure what's going on there but i have an external hard drive plugged into an airport extreme and thats how i am backing up to time machine on my macbook.

from experience it is possible, but i have had a pain getting this to work and its unreliable. I used a powered hub to do this.

no probs