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Super newbie Airport base station and card questions!
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Posting Junkie
Join Date: Sep 2001
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Offline
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I think this is the right forum....
OK, guys, I'm going to be moving and will my GF and I were considering Airport as a solution since we have two Macs (my PM dual 800 and her Flower Power 600 iMac) that will need the 'Net. We'll have Earthlink DSL. I'm completely new to wirless/AirPort stuff, so any help is appreciated.
Questions:
1) Is it possible for each of our Macs to communicate with each other via the AirPort cards alone, without a base station? If so, could the DSL be going into, say, the iMac and then have it share Internet with my PowerMac in the other room via the AirPort cards, and not have a need for a base station? (This would be great, as it would save use $200.)
2) Which cards should we get -- old AP cards, or the AirPort Extreme ones? Do APE cards work in the older iMacs? I believe they might work in my dual 800.
I think that's it for now. Thanks for the help, guys! 
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Professional Poster
Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: New York, NY
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Offline
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Originally posted by MindFad:
Questions:
1) Is it possible for each of our Macs to communicate with each other via the AirPort cards alone, without a base station? If so, could the DSL be going into, say, the iMac and then have it share Internet with my PowerMac in the other room via the AirPort cards, and not have a need for a base station? (This would be great, as it would save use $200.)
Yes, and yes. You just need to turn on internet sharing. It also might depend on how close these two macs are going to be (as base stations have better range than mere cards or "software base stations")
2) Which cards should we get -- old AP cards, or the AirPort Extreme ones? Do APE cards work in the older iMacs? I believe they might work in my dual 800.
Get the old cards. Why? #1 they're cheaper. #2, I doubt the new extreme cards will work with your Macs, #3, Airport is already faster than most cable modems/DSL connections, so unless you're going to be transferring a lot of really large files between macs, there's no need for the extreme...
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cpac
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Mac Elite
Join Date: Sep 2000
Location: Los Angeles
Status:
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Forget software base station. Just get a cheap wireless router and you'll only need one Airport card. Cheaper, better, safer and more reliable.
Oh, and neither of your comps are AE ready.
EDIT: Jesus, I just read that link I posted. Today that router is 39 bucks after rebates with free shipping! How could you possibly go wrong with a purchase like that? I've set a few of these up lately and they're great. Go buy one now.
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Last edited by aaanorton; Jun 11, 2003 at 11:06 PM.
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Addicted to MacNN
Join Date: Sep 2001
Location: Toronto
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What aaanorton said. Airport basestation is ok but a pain as far as reliability and reach goes. Your Mac goes to sleep so does your network. Your Mac is switched off, so is your network. Your Mac is working somewhere else, so is your network.
And I had no idea you were moving in with the bird. Congratulations.
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Addicted to MacNN
Join Date: Mar 2000
Location: London, UK
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Airport Extreme cards are only compatible with machines released this year (12", 17" PBs, newest MDD machines, etc).
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Mac Elite
Join Date: May 2001
Location: Aiken, South Carolina, USA
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i jus got an extreme basestation and regular airport card for my ibook, it rocks 
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Apple II GS | Powerbook 165 | iMac Rev. A 96mb RAM| iBook G3 500mhz, 128mb RAM | Power Macintosh G5 1.6ghz, 2.25gb RAM | Black MacBook 2ghz, 2gb RAM | iPhone Rev. A 8gb HD
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