Wireless Debacle.
I’ve been tossing around the idea of upgrading my iBook, who can resist G4 goodness and wireless G (versus B)?
Years ago when I first bought my iBook I also tossed in the Airport card and a Netgear WAP, so I could actually be wireless with it. Wireless hadn’t really caught on yet, so choices were limited and prices… well, you know how it goes.
I chose the Netgear access point because I had a pretty good history with their equipment and the price was right. Well, that access point was utterly terrible. I had it for about a day and returned it, it was either defective, or all of them were horrible, either way.. I wasn’t going to try it again.
I quickly spent twice as much, $300, on Apple’s Airport Base station, the totally cute translucent UFO looking thing. It has locked up maybe three times in the last few years, usually as a result of a Windows XP computer having difficulties with it… and then there was the whole debacle of when my brother David setup a wireless router as a bridge… they just didn’t cooperate.
I love how it looks, that UFO shape defies indication of what it really does… it has cute little white lights that blink in sequence whenever it’s starting up too. Alas, it’s only wireless B, painfully slow, thus whenever I do any sort of file transfer I usually plug in directly via ethernet. The new iBook would have wireless G, significantly faster, might even be tolerable for file transfers intra-network. I find myself on the market for a wireless G access point, thus my first stop was Apple. It turns out they still sell the cute little UFO base stations, but only the one with the modem… which at the time they came out was $100 more than the one without. Well, the non-modem version no longer exists, it has been supplanted by the Airport Express. The base station with the modem is now only $200.
The big problem is that I can get a wireless router with four gigabit ethernet ports for $125. It doesn’t have the sound or usb ports like the Airport Express, but for my purposes those are not exactly important. Still, I want the cute little UFO… I don’t think I can justify spending so much money for it though, considering I’d still need to buy a gigabit switch.
The thing is, I guess, is I have this aesthetic nostalgia of sorts. I don’t ever really see the Airport base station… it sits on a shelf, hidden by other little bits of crap. Why do I care what something looks like even if I don’t see it?
I could just keep it, I suppose, but if I’d be able to sell my iBook to Matthew I would also want to throw in the base station, since it has a modem… that way he’d be wireless on his dialup, heh… I think it would be nice for him.
I think I just need to get over this little aesthetic hang up. I always need to find something that has great form and great function. I think I could justify spending all that extra on the Airport if it also had four gigabit ethernet ports, heh.. It’d be kind of neat looking… all these wires coming out of that little squished orb shape; like tentacles.