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wireless networking question
Posted: 2004-06-24 10:20am
by Col. Crackpot
okay, here's the deal. i having a cable installed next week, and i'm going to set up a wireless system for my wife's iBOOK. What compatability issues are there when using two operating systems (OS X and NT)? Do i need any special software?
Posted: 2004-06-24 10:24am
by phongn
You'll need wireless adapters for each computer. Your wife's iBook may have a card built-in. Check to make sure that your WLAN NIC will support Windows NT...it's kinda old by this point.
Posted: 2004-06-24 11:13am
by Col. Crackpot
phongn wrote:You'll need wireless adapters for each computer. Your wife's iBook may have a card built-in. Check to make sure that your WLAN NIC will support Windows NT...it's kinda old by this point.
oops brainfart. It's running 2000, not NT. My Gateway i was planning to actually wire in (faster). Both the gateway and iBook have NIC's already.... so you're saying i will need a new NIC for the iBOOK?
Posted: 2004-06-24 11:26am
by phongn
If you wanted wireless for your iBook, yea, you might need to buy a WLAN NIC for it. You might not, most Macs have a WLAN NIC built into them.
Posted: 2004-06-24 02:10pm
by Praxis
Most Macs have the antenae built in, but still require the card to process the signal unless you already have it.
You can buy an Airport card if needed assuming you don't already have one.
If it's an iBook G4, get an Airport Extreme, if you have an iBook G3, get Airport.
If you're not sure if you have one, do you have a little wireleses icon in the top of the screen? It looks like a triangle if off, or 4 radio waves if on.
Due to the built in antennae, after you put in the card you will have reception far better than most laptops.
Compability issues would be that NT can not detect Mac OS X, but Mac OS X is smart enough to be able to read NT's sharing protocols. However, you can turn on Windows File Sharing to trick the Windows NT computer into thinking the iBook is Windows, lol.
If you don't care about filesharing it doesn't matter- both use TCP/IP, both have the same internet connection sharing protocols, etc.
If you don't have a wireless card (theres an internal slot under the keyboard for it, after you unscrew the panel beneath), you can buy an Airport card refurb from Apple for $59- Airport Extreme (802.11g) for $79.