Airport Software Base Station

[yogi477]

Hello all, I just have a few questions that I hope you may be able to answer about Airport:

1) Can I use my iMac as an Airport base station if it has a card in and so does my Powerbook?

2) Will this enable me to share broadband connection between the two by this method?

3) What sort of range can I expect?

Thanks in advance

Ryan

 

[FatTony]

1) and 2)
Yes, this is possible.

3)
Range depends on a whole lot of things. The titanium powerbooks don't get very good range compared with other Macs. I'm not sure about the new AL powerbooks. Large metal appliances, microwaves and 2.4 GHz cordless phones can all interfere with AirPort. You will have to experiment on getting the best range.

 

[jimthorn]

At work, I use a flat panel iMac and I utilize "Software Base Station" to share connection to the network/Internet with my iBook. It works as well as my snow Airport Base Station does at home with the same iBook. Range is at least as good (in a crowded office with lots of cubicles, walls, computers, wiring... I get a good 75 to 100 feet). Of course, I am using an iBook (better range than PowerBook). For home use, I'm sure this would work great for you. I've thought about replacing my Airport Base Station at home with an iMac, if only I had the spare $$.

 

[yogi477]

How?

Ok thanks but now the question is how?Is there a lot of setup involved every time I want to use the system or is it just a case of switching the iMac on? Do I already have the software within the OS to do this or does it need to be downloaded?

 

[FatTony]

I'm going to assume you have Mac OS X 10.2 or later.

I was going to explain it, but I'm sure Apple will do a more thorough job.

Download the pdf on this page

 

[Daveman Deluxe]

Re: Airport Software Base Station

Originally posted by yogi477
Hello all, I just have a few questions that I hope you may be able to answer about Airport:

1) Can I use my iMac as an Airport base station if it has a card in and so does my Powerbook?

2) Will this enable me to share broadband connection between the two by this method?

3) What sort of range can I expect?

Thanks in advance

Ryan

I just started working at the church I go to on Monday and for right now, I share an office with the youth pastor. Well, there's only one Ethernet plug in the wall and he gets it. However, we both are running OS 10.2 (he has a TiBook, I have an iBook) and we both have AirPort. Under the "Sharing" pane of System Preferences, you can choose to share the Internet connection via AirPort. So I did that and it works like a charm. It's ISDN, so it's slow, but the beauty of the deal is that it works exactly like any router does, so we can share files with each other without having to e-mail them or use a JumpDrive or something. Probably one of the single greatest features of OS9 is revived in OSX.