Please help with these few questions...

[macfan76]

I am looking to buy a new power book. I am going to use the airport extreme card a lot and was wondering since the case is aluminum if I would be able to get a good signal compared to a dell laptop. How good REALLY is the wifi signal you have experienced on the new power books?

Also, I am looking for a program that could mount a CD image to the HD. I want to play my games such as Halo and UT2004 without putting the CD in. Does anyone know of a good free program that does that.

Thanks so much for all the comments! It is much appreciated.

 

[e-coli]

Also, I am looking for a program that could mount a CD image to the HD. I want to play my games such as Halo and UT2004 without putting the CD in. Does anyone know of a good free program that does that.

Your Mac will come with a program built into the operating system that does this. It's called Disk Utility. It works wonderfully. I do it all the time.

And the WiFi reception is really quite good. We use the new AlumiBooks at work with WiFi, and there's nver an issue. The antennae actually have their own spot on the sides of the screen that are not covered with aliminum. And what's REALLY nice, is that you won't have that ridiculous extended PCI card hanging out of your notebook, since to card and antennae are built in.

 

[parrothead]

Also, I am looking for a program that could mount a CD image to the HD. I want to play my games such as Halo and UT2004 without putting the CD in. Does anyone know of a good free program that does that.

Thanks so much for all the comments! It is much appreciated.

e-coli is right about being able to creat disc images with your mac. However, I have tried this many times and many games wont run off an imaged CD. They always want the original CD in the drive. Also, I own both a Titanium and an aluminum powerbook and the AL has much better wireless reception.

 

[jxyama]

I am looking to buy a new power book. I am going to use the airport extreme card a lot and was wondering since the case is aluminum if I would be able to get a good signal compared to a dell laptop. How good REALLY is the wifi signal you have experienced on the new power books?

wifi signal is a radio signal. having a metallic case is actually worse in terms of the reception. (metal cages shield the inside components from EM waves...) Al PBs added little plastic openings to better expose the antenna. so Al has better wifi reception than the Ti, but not as good as iBooks, which is made of plastic.

 

[baby duck monge]

wifi signal is a radio signal. having a metallic case is actually worse in terms of the reception. (metal cages shield the inside components from EM waves...) Al PBs added little plastic openings to better expose the antenna. so Al has better wifi reception than the Ti, but not as good as iBooks, which is made of plastic.

to give you an idea of this... i was sitting in the libe with a friend of mine and we were both on wireless. i was on my ibook (old g3) and had 4 bars, he was on his powerbook (new 12") and had 2 bars.

that being said, however, unless you are planning on being pretty far from your base station, you should still be just fine with the powerbook. and like it's been pointed out, having internal wireless is much sexxxier than having something stick out the side of your machine.