On May 8, 2012, at 4:00 PM, cheryl wrote:
I am living in a place with no internet service, and I'm wondering if I can use one of the wireless mobile devices.
You'll need an ISP (internet service provider). An Airport (WIFI) card only gets you wireless ethernet connection, normally between a router and your Mac. To get internet service you'll need an ISP, usually over DSL, cable, FIOS, or a mobile phone system. Internet over mobile phones is generally pretty expensive and pretty slow, but if that's all you can get, it may be your only feasible choice. Most people would accomplish this by getting an "unlimited" data account for an iPhone, and then jailbreak the iPhone and "tether" it to the Mac over WIFI (Airport). This will be expensive & slow, but it will give you internet on a mobile iPhone and on your home Mini. It's likely both faster & cheaper to use DSL, cable, FIOS, dish, or Wifi (perhaps make a deal with a neighbor with WIFI?). There are special mobile adapters for computers, but this is very limiting compared to having a tethered iPhone or other mobile phone, so a special adapter would be the worst and probably most expensive solution. And there's still DIAL-UP internet using a conventional phone modem and a landline, but that should be a last resort due to the slow speed.
I don't think my machine has an Airport card because when I check that on the system it says "no information available".
It looks like you don't have an Airport (& Bluetooth) module in your Mini.
The problem is that I don't know if one of those mobile devices will run on a USB hub, and a mac mini only has two USB ports, which are being used for my keyboard and mouse.
Most Apple keyboards have USB ports which you can plug the mouse into to free a port on the Mini itself. Older Apple keyboards are USB 1 so they'll work fine for a mouse, but NOT for WIFI devices, you'll need a USB 2 port on the Mini or a USB 2 hub for WIFI.
Is there any way to find out if my machine will take a wireless keyboard and mouse?
Apple wireless keyboards & mice are Bluetooth, and if your Mini doesn't have an Airport module it likely also doesn't have Bluetooth, so you'd need to buy a either a Mini Airport/Bluetooth module (too expensive in my opinion), or a cheap USB Bluetooth dongle (better idea). Again, this concept of buy wireless keyboard & mouse to free up a USB port is crazy, you can buy an 8-port powered USB hub for cheaper and get 8 USB powered ports for a lot less money than a wireless keyboard & mouse.
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