AirPort Blog

Are you experiencing problems with an AirPort Express where it drops on and off your network (Apple Discussions)? Take a look at that thread and post comments below.

Posted by Glenn Fleishman at 11:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

For reasons best known at Apple, there is no longer a list of AirPort Express and AirPort Extreme Base Station compatible USB printers. I asked, and they said the list had become unwieldy. Unfortunately, there's no definitive place on manufacturers' Web sites to find out which printers work with these two types of Apple base stations. You don't want to buy a base station and find out your USB printer is incompatible; nor do you want to buy a printer for your base station only to find out that it's incompatible./ iFelix is maintaining this unofficial list of USB compatibility, however. It has several simple layers of information: printers that were on Apple's list at one point are in normal type; those added later are in bold; those that iFelix himself (itself?) has tested are in dark red. The page also lists known incompatible printers and known compatible Wi-Fi-enabled printers. Great list, and I suggest that if you have information, you contribute it and hope that iFelix keeps up the good work. This thread at the Apple Discussions for AirPort Express may also be of use.

Posted by Glenn Fleishman at 09:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

If you're a Mac OS X user and meet certain requirements, you can become a beta tester of Boingo Wireless's Wi-Fi hotspot connection software. They're looking for a total of 25 qualified testers; you get unlimited Boingo usage at thousands of for-fee hotspots as part of your beta testing. Very cool if you're a traveler. Read the full details at TidBITS's blog, ExtraBITS.

Posted by Glenn Fleishman at 02:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A couple of antenna-related announcements for Mac users in the last few days. MacWireless introduced its three 11g antenna booster models which work with three kinds of antennas they already sell. The booster increases gain further, which pushes the range of the antennas. They don't work with Dr. Bott's two antennas, only with models sold by MacWireless. MacWireless continues to expand its comprehensive line of Mac-oriented Wi-Fi products, filling many gaps for older and newer Macs alike through a combination of drivers and hardware. I note on their site that their trade-in for an old AirPort card is now $60, which is a pretty decent price. They sell on eBay for that much or more, and this removes that hassle of an auction transaction. QuickerTek also continues to provide oodles of options for Mac owners focusing on the antenna side. Their announcement today is for a $100 5.5 dBi whip antenna to extend the range of AirPort Extreme Cards in 15-inch and 17-inch aluminum PowerBooks. I find the range on my 15-inch Au to be quite good, but 5.5 dBi is a large upgrade and could allow you to use a PowerBook over a larger area in a home, office, or hotspot. The site says the antenna upgrade is possible for ordinary users, too, but doesn't provide the installation guide for examination on their Web site.

Posted by Glenn Fleishman at 06:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Mac users ignore, but Windows XP users who have installed Service Pack 2 (SP2), you can now get back your access to AirPort Express through this update.

Posted by Glenn Fleishman at 07:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

If you've got an RSS feed for this blog, you'll notice a refresh of posts. We just moved the location from one server to another, and upgraded the blog to the latest version of our blogging software, Movable Type. Templates are still shaking out, so you might see a little weirdness on the Web side until we figure out all the little details to fix.

Posted by Glenn Fleishman at 12:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)