Bluetooth Network?

[Swinny]

Hi all,

I am looking to wirelessly network my iBook and iMac together so I can take the iBook around the house etc...obviously Airport would seem the way to go, but it's a little out of my price range at the moment.

My current setup is a cable connection plugged into our home PC with Internet Connection Sharing turned on that is then wired via a mini-hub to the 2 Macs...works and absolute treat, however I want to be able to have a little more freedom with the iBook...speed of connection isn't overly important, it would just be nice to be able to surf a few websites and check emails etc occasionaly.

What I would like to know is:

1) Can I add a bluetooth dongle to the iBook and iMac that will allow them to talk together?
2) Will I be able to relay the shared Internet connection via the bluetooth?
3) Are their only certain bluetooth dongles that will work on Macs?

Thanks in advance for any help/advice that people can give.

 

[strider42]

Re: Bluetooth Network?

Originally posted by Swinny
Hi all,

I am looking to wirelessly network my iBook and iMac together so I can take the iBook around the house etc...obviously Airport would seem the way to go, but it's a little out of my price range at the moment.

My current setup is a cable connection plugged into our home PC with Internet Connection Sharing turned on that is then wired via a mini-hub to the 2 Macs...works and absolute treat, however I want to be able to have a little more freedom with the iBook...speed of connection isn't overly important, it would just be nice to be able to surf a few websites and check emails etc occasionaly.

What I would like to know is:

1) Can I add a bluetooth dongle to the iBook and iMac that will allow them to talk together?
2) Will I be able to relay the shared Internet connection via the bluetooth?
3) Are their only certain bluetooth dongles that will work on Macs?

Thanks in advance for any help/advice that people can give.

Bluetooth would be useless to you for this.

1) bluetooth has a range of about 30 feet.
2) bluetooth has a speed less than 1/11th that of USB or airport or ethernet, meaning its very, very slow (under 1 megabit per second)
3) bluetooth isn't meant to be a networking technology

You'de be better off with an airport card and a wireless router for sure (router doesn't have to be the apple base station), and the older airport cards have come down in price now that airport extreme is out.

 

[Macpoops]

Hell all you need is 2 airport cards. As long as you have 10.2 on your imac you can set up a software base station. The original airport cards are selling for around 70 something a piece now. 140 compared to 340 if you were to buy an AE base station and 2 classic cards.

 

[timbloom]

Originally posted by Macpoops
Hell all you need is 2 airport cards. As long as you have 10.2 on your imac you can set up a software base station. The original airport cards are selling for around 70 something a piece now. 140 compared to 340 if you were to buy an AE base station and 2 classic cards.

This is definately the way to go for him, 2 cards, one in the ibook, one in the imac. Then go to the sharing control panel, and select "share internet connection over airport" This will work well.

 

[Swinny]

Cool!

I didn't realise I could use Airport without the base station! That's very tempting...I will have a look around!

Is is still possible to share the Internet Connection from the iMac if its shared itself from the PC?

Cheers guys!

 

[Macpoops]

yes it is. the imac doesn;t know it's a shared connection it just thinks its a regular ole lan connection. so you can share it again over airport without a problem. just like pluging in a base station

 

[candan9019]

anyone know if a airport extreme card would share internet with a classic airport card?
( new imac shares with old ibook )

 

[Mal]

Airport Extreme is fully compatible with Airport as far the connection goes. With an AE card in the iMac, you can share the connection with iBook at Airport speeds. You also will get the full range of Airport, not just the 50 ft of AE. Sounds like that's the solution you need, except one minor detail. Some internet sites and programs that use the internet DO NOT WORK when sharing the connection from 10.2.x. I found this out the hard way, and I'll tell you now, if you try to go to sites like apple.com, mail.yahoo.com, or use Sherlock 3 or Entourage, too bad. There is no fix for this problem from Apple yet, although they are aware of the problem now. If you can accept that and just work around it, fine, otherwise don't try to use software internet sharing.

JW