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jesses584 · Nov 20, 2002, 01:06 PM

I am a college student and i am going to purchase an 800mhz 12 inch ibook in the near future. I live at home and there is an existing network in my house - my parents are running an older pc with DSL internet. They have a router connected so the second computer can also have internet access.

Here is my question - all the information i have read on the airport base station dealt with making the whole network wireless. I dont want to do that. Can i connect the base station to this network so i can be wireless but keep the other two wired together?

thankyou for your help.

jess.

ghporter · Nov 20, 2002, 01:41 PM

You bet! And you don't have to spend $300 to do it, either.

"AirPort" is Apple's brand name for IEEE 802.11b-compliant wireless networking equipment, which is also known as "WiFi" equipment. ANY WiFi EQUIPMENT WORKS WITH ALL OTHER WiFi EQUIPMENT. Sorry about the shout, but I hope to get this across to the next several dozen folks that browse this forum.

This means that you can buy an 802.11b access point from SMC, Linksys, Lucent (or Orinoco or Agere or whatever they call themselves this afternoon) or anyone else and it will work. These products will also set you back a lot less money than an AirPort Base Station, which frankly does a lot more than you'll need when connected to your parents' existing network.

jesses584 · Nov 20, 2002, 04:05 PM

thankyou for the prompt answer. Sometimes shouting is necessary... You seem to be a knowledgable person - can you recomend a site to purchase a 512mb ram card at a price below apple.com's $200?

thanks again

jess

ghporter · Nov 21, 2002, 10:05 AM

When they introduced their new lines several years ago, Apple made the very good (and good business) decision to go with "industry standard" DIMM memory packages. That means that there are lots of places to find RAM for an iBook.

The 800MHz iBook uses 144-pin small-outline DIMMs (SO-DIMM) that run at a bus speed of 133MHz. The Apple Store lists the 512MB units at $200.
Crucial Technology lists the equivalent item for $140 when bought online. Viking, Kingston, and other computer RAM vendors probably have similarly lower prices.

The point here is that Apple makes up for having a relatively small, but focused customer base by marking up their products a bit more than PC vendors do. Buy from Apple and they stand behind the product, but how much support do you need for one stick of RAM? (Crucial has a good warranty program, too.)