On Sunday, May 16, 2004, at 12:43 PM, Jim Scolman wrote: > Good morning All, I live in the Seattle area and we have all of the > electronic and office big box stores, independent Apple dealers, and > at least two Apple Stores. I am getting ready to go home wireless > with my Pismo, and in reading the Sunday paper and all of the ads, my > question is this; why do I need Airport, when there are several name > brand WiFi routers on sale for less than $100.00? Aside from Apple > loyalty, and the "cool" factor, which may be negligent as the router > is often in a place where the casual visitor to your home may not see > it and therefor not be impressed by your "cool" factor, is there a > compelling technical factor for using an Airport over any of the other > good products on the market ? I have been a rabid Mac user since 1985 > and love the "look and feel" of the products and how they work, and > work, and work! Thanks Jim.
Perhaps a good point to note is that if you want to go with 802.11g (54 vs. 11), you'll have to go with a non-Apple 'Airport' card, since Airport Extreme (Apple's version of 802.11g) isn't available for the Pismo. So get a good non-Apple PCMCIA card for that slot on the left side of your Pismo, and then go with Apple or non-Apple for the Base Station (aka Wireless Access Point from some manufacturers) according to whether you do or don't need AppleTalk usability. As has been pointed out here on the list and other places, be aware that if you go with the 802.11g (Airport Extreme) kind of setup but have a regular Airport/802.11b card on *one* of your computers, the system will be slowed down, generally to the 802.11b speed. The faster speed, as I understand it, only works when all components of the Wi-Fi network are running at the 54 speed of 802.11g. FWIW. HTH, Jim Rohde "That the PC world would doggedly stick to a dull, unimaginative, clinical term like 'IEEE 1394' (notice how it just rolls off the tongue - NOT) for the sole purpose of *saving a few pennies* over using an imaginative, exciting, visually-stimulating term like 'FireWire' tells you EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW about the PC world and that whole industry-wide mindset." - Charles Martin -- G-Books is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Small Dog Electronics http://www.smalldog.com | Refurbished Drives | -- Check our web site for refurbished PowerBooks | & CDRWs on Sale! | Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> G-Books list info: <http://lowendmac.com/lists/g-books.html> --> AOL users, remove "mailto:"; Send list messages to: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/g-books%40mail.maclaunch.com/> --------------------------------------------------------------- >The Think Different Store http://www.ThinkDifferentStore.com ---------------------------------------------------------------
