Wi-Fi Hotspot

We have a small, home LAN. We wired our house for Ethernet shortly after we moved in. We've got a cable in most rooms (yes in the bedroom; no in the bathrooms) and two in the living room.

But Technology has progressed and our current laptop is wireless-capable. It was beginning to seem rather silly (not to mention inconvenient), to plug into a 1/8" diameter, stiff cable whenever I wanted to reach the Net from the couch. I had to drag that cable around whenever I shifted the laptop back to the table, or up over the cat, and it kept getting caught in the recliner mechanism of the couch.. So.....

A few days ago, Rich and I discussed the matter. The next evening, after work, I stopped by the nearest Apple Store and picked up an Airport Express Base Station. This is one cute little electronic device

It comes packaged in one of Apple's signature origami-style boxes. The unit itself is about the size of a laptop power supply. It's got a connector port for a network cable, another for USB, and a third for audio. When we figure out how, we'll be able to play music from Rich's iTunes collection, on his Mac, through the living room stereo system.

The installation instructions could have been a bit more explicit. It took some guesswork to figure out that the base station must have an assigned IP address before it can "see" the network. However, our new router made quick work of supplying a dynamic IP address. And, once we got past that, it was pretty smooth sailing to full connectivity. The light went from amber to a cool green glow and we were online.

Now I can sit on the couch, laptop (and cat :-) on my lap, with no flopping wires. The battery lasts longer than I'm likely to need and the wireless networking is flawless.

Wi-Fi Hotspot ( in category Trivial Pursuits ) - posted at Fri, 05 Jan, 21:31 Pacific | «e» | TrackBack