“Wi-Fi is a shining example of how wireless innovation can itself shed the constricting cables of conventional wisdom. At one point it was assumed that when people wanted to use wireless devices for things other than conversation, they’d have to rely on the painstakingly drawn, investment-heavy standards adopted by the giant corporations that rake in the dough through your monthly phone bill. But then some geeks came up with a new communications standard exploiting an unlicensed part of the spectrum (which the wonks at the FCC called ‘junk band,’ stuff designated for techno-flotsam like microwave ovens and cordless phones). It was called 802.11 and only later sexed up with the Wi-Fi moniker,” Steven Levy writes for Newsweek.
“Though the range of signal was usually no more than a few hundred feet or less, Wi-Fi turned out to be a great way to wirelessly extend an Internet connection in the home or office. A new class of activist was born: the bandwidth liberator, with a goal of extending free wireless Internet to anyone venturing within the range of a gratis hotspot. Meanwhile, Apple Computer seized on the idea as a consumer solution, others followed and now Wi-Fi is as common as the modem once was,” Levy writes. Full article here.
Of course, for Mac users, Wi-Fi is old hat. Mac users have been using it since July 1999.
And it’s a pain in the ass with so many people trying to hack in and unexplained “outages” requiring a reset. Encrytption slows everything down.
I’m happier back to cables, seems more stable and secure. Someone has to splice in to gain access. Apple Remote Desktop works better over Ethernet than wireless.
For net cafes and the like, WiFi is perfect. In the office and at home with desktop machines. CAT5 and a hub, much better, got a problem?, just unplug the bastard.
Even a wireless keyboard can be snooped on, better too.
I’m not going back to cable, thank you. Sitting in my easy chair in my living room and moving to kitchen to have some afternoon tea.
And when my older son is at home, to have two long ethernet cables snaking around after us. Simply no way!
both have their pluses and minuses. I have wireless at home and work. I plunk my titanium wherever I want in the house. living room, kitchen, the deck….at work its the same thing, I put it down next to my work station ( I work for a small design firm) and get my email. But at work we also have gigabit ethernet for moving large files around. would I give up my wireless? No way! is it perfect for everything? no way……
I agree with macBrett, only I have wireless at the office and CAT5e at home with a little used wireless option. The wireless at the office has been an affordable alternative to a very time consuming and expensive rewiring of the original hardwired network which used telephone cables running through the walls and attic. Yipes!
Wired access is always best for security and stability… but I hate dragging 100 feet of cable out to the patio table when I feel like working outside for an hour.
I have a 2nd generation (snow) Airport, and haven’t had to reset it for about 6 months now – since a program revision late last year.
Getting some Windows machines to work with it can be a pain… but by the end of this year, the entire office will be Macs, so who cares?
This is the one topic where I am honestly grateful to Bill Gates and Microsoft.
Since Windows never really got plug and play right and adding any type of peripheral could be a re-install everything, service tech type adventure, many people who set up wi-fi on their Windows machine are just happy if things work so they never add any type of security to their wi-fi network. This means I can hijack a wi-fi network literally all over town.
“This means I can hijack a wi-fi network literally all over town.”
I was wondering how you were gonna land the plane on that one…
lol
I am on a wireless network at home because it allows both the iMac downstairs and my Tibook (usually upstairs but really anywhere) to share the same connection without having to run wires all over the house. Plus when my Mom in Law comes over with her 14″ iBook she is online automatically too and I am online whenever I visit her. I have also stayed at two hotels where the ONLY Broadband connection available was Wi-Fi. I think is is a much easier and cheaper solution for them and so I think it also contributes to more Hotels offering Broadband which is great for staying in touch with home with vid chats on iChat AV (AND no phone bills
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I am still using the original graphite Airport Base along with two Apple laptops at home. (PB Pismo G3 with original airport card and G$ iBOOK with Extreme card. Going on four years of 24/7 operation for that base and it has been reset three times in that period. (Software updates.)
Would never go back. When you live in a three story house, the thought of using cables to connect your roaming laptops to the network using cables is simply a laughable option. Especially considering how robust and reliable the Apple WI-FI system has proven itself to be.
my friend told me that you can allow your neighbors to connect to your base station and charge them a monthy subscription fee through the apples macforpay sofware. im buying the base station at the apple store in 45 minutes. he said pick the one that is orange.
hubert, was just looking for “macforpay software”, but couldn’t find any info at apple’s site. Got a link?
Most ISPs forbid reselling of their bandwidth. Only ISP I know that allows and even encourages bandwidth reselling is http://www.speakeasy.net/
And, as for finding that macforpay software, have you not heard of Google?
You made me break my vow to not visit MSNBC ( no mac vid support ). Maybe if a lot of people did this it wold at least get news mention.
secret chink, so what? there are private networks throughout the catskills sharing a single cable connection. As long as no one on the network is throwing gobs of porn downline there is no way to tell.
As for google, when you get a computer, try searching for macforpay software. smartass.
I’m sat typing into the laptop now on the sofa, listening to music on our lounge stereo with my partner beside me. I compare that to how it was before wi-fi, when I was in a different room whenever I wanted to access the Net. From a home networking point of view, Wi-fi makes as big a difference to the way you use the Internet as broadband connections did. I’ll be very surprised if anyone breaks my Wi-fi network, but even if they do, every Mac on it has ipfw configured to only allow shared printer and iTunes access by default. So I hope they like my music. To go back to my clubbing days:-
Tune
google turned up no results for this program
versiontracker.com turned up no results for this program
VAPORWARE
change your nick coward, your going to get harassed from now on.
reminds me of how pc’s first attempt on wireless
we didn’t have all the pcs connected to network during the first day of our wireless era. the tech guy, a pc geek, had been reading instruction until late afternoon when he called tech supports.
– called d-link, and the tech guy said the problem was either caused by ibm’s pcmcia port (2-inch-thickpad) or incompatibility between d-link access point and netgear WL card.
– called netgear, and the tech guy told us to update the driver (in which windows warned us that the setup file was from the unknown source). if still not solved, check with d-link tech support.
– called ibm, and all he said was that windows xp home has some bug with wireless networking, try microsoft tech support.
– called microsoft. i’m sure most of you can guess what was his answer!
on the same week, i had my airport setup at home for tibook in about 10mins.
Levy did have one mistake in his article. Most people make the same mistake. Marconi was NOT the inventor of the radio. Tesla was. Tesla sued, won and the patent is in his name. Marconi got the idea from Tesla and brought it forth into popular fruition similar as Apple did USB.
I just set up a wireless/wired network at home. Instead of using an Airport card for my iBook, I’m trying a D-Link Wireless USB adapter. It works fine except one weird glitch: Whenever I use Safari or Mozilla and I am on eBay, it locks up after a few screens. IE doesn’t. And I have updated the D-Link driver too.
Goyanks- What do you mean, “So what?” I’m just telling you most ISPs forbid reselling bandwidth. You can’t dispute that fact. You can choose to ignore it and go charge people for bandwidth, but you’d be stupid to think your neighbor won’t eat up the bandwidth and alert the ISPs. And since you are selling bandwidth that’s paid under your name, you are responsible for anything your neighbor does. If they are Kevin Mitnick wannabes or are serving p2p files, YOU get screwed and they laugh their ass off. Oh, well. So, what, huh?
As for the vaporware, macplay, don’t blame me for huburt’s misinformation. He got the name wrong. But there IS such a software:
http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/22636
http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/14328
Any person with above room temperature IQ can try various search terms to find it. For me, I used “hotspot.” Learn to use your brain.
Secret Asian Man, actually my IQ is twice normal room temperture.
You did my work for me. Thanks.
LOL
The fact that you failed to prove yourself as self-reliant, as well as being quick to insult me without really looking, is evidence of your true IQ.
^
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Hello R.V.
My Powermac is wired, I am looking at TV at the Powermac right now, meanwhile my Powerbook ( wireless ) is transferring a huge file at 3,25MB per second to the Powermac. NICE!
Apple has set the standard with wireless communications.
I absolutely love the WiFi in my house. I have 2mb Cable Internet and notice no slowdown. I have the following devices plugged into it..
3 Airport Extreme’s (two used as WDS), all three have printers attached. The two WDS base stations have PCs connected in the LAN port. I have three Macintosh’s wireless (an iMac G3 400, iMac G4 1ghz, Powerbook G4 1ghz). We are soon getting a PC laptop. Oh also, I have two TIVO’s that also have their own wireless usb card. At one time, for about a year, my neighbor across the street had a computer wirelessly attached to our network–it reaches THAT FAR.
We’re blocked so only those whose MAC address is logged into our base station can access. We also have the network hidden, and password protected w/ 128bit encryption.
Christopher