[sura]

My system:
imac w/os x;
ibook w/os x;
an old pc laptow w/xp;
HP C6180 wi fi printer
Airport Extreme

All of the system is working fine on the wi fi network. I can't for the life of me figure out how to secure the network. As soon as I make a change in the Airport Admin Utility, it quits working. This should be easy, I know. I'm just not getting it.

HELP PLEASE!!!

[ghporter]

When you change the settings in the Admin Utility, the clients MUST ALSO BE CHANGED to match those settings. In general, all you'll need to do is provide the new password/phrase on each client.

I recommend (VERY STRONGLY) that you at least use WPA. WPA supports passphrases up to 63 plain characters long, and the more complex it is, the stronger and thus more secure it is. I use this site to generate random passphrases. You can use any character, punctuation, symbol, etc., and again, the more complex the better. I personally create a text file with the passphrase and put it on a USB flash drive so I can carry it around, then copy/paste it to ensure it's properly entered.

Once the base station has been set up, go to each client (Mac or PC) and try to connect-you should be prompted for the new passphrase on each. Just copy and paste again each time. It should work the same way with your wireless printer, but how you get at the settings for entering the passphrase is somewhere in the printer's setup. For that you're on your own.

Give it a try and see how well it works

[sura]

Yes, that makes sense. I have the imac and printer working. THANK YOU! Can't get the macbook configured. What program/utility am I supposed to be using? Right now, it's not seeing any networks.