AirPort Works!
Ignore all of my insults, Apple
- March 8, 2000
Rodney O. Lain
- "It takes a deaf man to hear."
- Thomas Edison
Before Macworld San Francisco, I'd given up all hope of being able
to have a wireless AirPort connection with anything less than an
iMac, iBook, or Power Mac. You see, I have a "Wall
Street" PowerBook G3. No AirPort functionality, in other
words.
 Then,
while at Macworld, I had the good fortune of acquiring a WaveLAN PC
card that allowed me to surf the 'Net sans wires.
Love is too weak of a word to describe my elation.
Distance made my heart grow fonder of the world of wireless web
weaving, when I made it home, relegated back to my 56k
connection.
In a fit of withdrawal, I bought an AirPort base station, assuming
I could easily get back to the future of internet connectivity --
after all, it was an Apple product, right?
Wrong.
I never got that thing to work. I reset the firmware in the base
station. I did it again. And again. And yet again.
I tossed the base station under my desk and fired off one of two
columns about my displeasure with Apple and its product, such as
AirPort
1.1: Maybe it'll work this time at The iMac.
Then, Apple released version 1.1 of the AirPort software. I
installed it -- nothing happened. It still didn't work.
At first, I thought it was my WaveLAN card. But I was able to surf
the 'Net at work, via our company's AirPort base station.
Hopeful, once more, I went to CompUSA, and the red shirts were
kind enough to let me exchange my base station for another one. I
brought it home, monkey-see-monkey-do'd the instructions and . . .
Viola! We're wireless, babyyyyy!
Now, I'm ready to see if US West can get their act together and
give my suburb DSL connectivity. Hey, US West: Media One (our cable
company) is running a special on cable modem access and
installation!
Meanwhile, I'd like to take back every nasty thing that I'd ever
said about Apple during the last few weeks.
Now, if only the folks at Cupertino keep their collective noses
clean (namely, by not shipping products before they're ready for
prime time!), preventing me from having to open up a can of
you-know-what within the constraints of this column.
Good going on the AirPort upgrade, guys.
Now, if only you can market this thing the way you should and sell
a few million of them. 
- <this article available in a printer-friendly
version>
More Things Macintosh- AirPort Works!, 3/8/2000. "I'd like
to take back every nasty thing that I'd ever said about Apple
during the last few weeks."
- Don Crabb, I truly never knew you,
3/2/2000
- The main difference between Steve Jobs
and Bill Gates, 1/17/2000
- "The Mac Is a Toy," 12/30/1999
- The $600 iMac, 12/24/1999
- Megahertz really does matter (outside
the Mac community), 12/8/1999
- more on the Things Macintosh home
page
- Interview: Geeks
gods & godesses, Pioneer Planet, 4/10/2000
- Interview: Rodney
O. Lain, Real Life Macs, MacAddict, 3/29/2000
Rodney O. Lain lives in Minnesota. He is a regular columnist for
theiMac.com, SemperMac,
Mac Addict, Applelinks,
and My Mac. He wrote this column
on his PowerBook G3. Recent Editorials at Low End Mac- A road not taken (by
Apple), Scott Atkinson, Mac Musings, 4/11. "Unlike Macs,
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