[JitteryJimmy]

As an international traveller, I like Apple's power units a lot.

First of all, they all work just about anywhere in the world - they're auto-switching.

Secondly, there are many plugs that you can use with them - pop off the stock power connector, and you can plug in many other dongles. Plus you can use any of Apple's stock grounded power cords, the International kit, plus any IEC C7 style cord that is often used with radios, printers, and laptops.

This design is just about as flexible as it can be.

They also seat well in any socket of "perpendicular" powerstrips, and in the last position of "parallel" power strips. If you don't like how it sits in your outlet, I recommend you find an Apple power cord for it, or any C7 style cord. You should be able to get one from your local IT friend for free (as, sadly, cords can stay in service for decades, but equipment often does not)

[Dan Frakes]

rwolfman said:

I'm a bit confused as to whether this device can extend my existing Airport Extreme wireless network wirelessly (i.e., boost-n-retransmit). Here's my situation. I currently have the Airport Extreme on the 2nd level of the house. My kids each have a Macbook and use it wirelessly 100% (usually on the 2nd level). I would like to move the Airport Extreme to the basement (so I can hook up an external HD for TimeMachine backups at night - have to do this in the basement because the external drive makes too much noise & keeps my wife awake). My fear is that, once I move the Extreme into the basement, my kids will get poor/no wireless signal for their laptops. So, I'm wondering if this new Airport Express installed on the 2nd level will boost the signal of the Express in the basement so that the laptops will get a solid signal. (I do not plan to connect any wired devices to the Airport Express.) Can the Express do this? Thanks.

Yes, you can do this, although if the Extreme's signal ends up being weak on the second floor, a better approach would likely be to put the Express on the first floor -- that way it's still well within the Extreme's signal and can still extend the network to the second floor.

[Dan Frakes]

SSGoku said:

On the surface, the Express would seem to be a useful addition to a Home Theatre set-up.

With AirTunes, I?d be able to stream music to my audio receiver. With the ProxySTA feature, I?d be able to use my game console on a wireless-n network. The question is can I really do this? Can AirTunes and ProxySTA operate at the same time?

Yes.

SSGoku said:

Another question is what happens if I were to get a Blu-Ray player with an Ethernet port. The Express only has one Ethernet port. If I were to get a switch/router, can I bridge more than one internet enabled device using the Express?

Yes, you can connect a hub or switch to the Express's Ethernet port to connect multiple devices.

[NormM]

I don't yet have an AirPort Express, but I have had some problems with dropped connections with clients of my AirPort Extreme. My problem turned out to be due to all the other wireless routers nearby my apartment fighting to automatically select a channel in the 2.4GHz band. You can only really have three non-overlapping channels there (1,6, and 11?) and if there are more than three routers nearby, all on automatic, they will fight it out endlessly. Even if you manually pick a fixed channel, the other routers will periodically try to take it over. That's one reason the availability of the 5GHz band for 802.11n seems like such a nice feature.

[markrich2200]

MayDay!! I just received my Airport Express N today and have spent most of the day trying to get AP Utility to "see it" and get it installed. The Apple Support FAQ is a void and the discussion groups seem to have a 50% install success rate.
I have a cable modem - linksys WRT150N router - then ethernet cables to my G5 and an HP laptop. I started trying to configure wirelessly then tried via an ethernet cable and still no resolution.
I bought this device to connect my DIRECTV HD-DVR to my wireless network but am wondering if this was my first big miss with an Apple product.
Observations, suggestions welcome! MR

[VoxLocus]

MarkRich2200 wrote

MayDay!!
I just received my Airport Express N today and have spent most of the
day trying to get AP Utility to "see it" and get it installed. The
Apple Support FAQ is a void and the discussion groups seem to have a
50% install success rate.
I have a cable modem - linksys WRT150N router - then ethernet cables to
my G5 and an HP laptop. I started trying to configure wirelessly then
tried via an ethernet cable and still no resolution.

Mark:

Have you been able to connect to the device with Airport Utility? If you can't connect with the AU and the device plugged into the G5 ethernet port directly, the device may be defective.

If you're trying to connect it to your router by ethernet, I am pretty sure it will have to connect as DHCP. A friend tried to connect one as though it were itself the router, and that won't work.

Just bought a new DSL modem (Motorola) which functions as a 1 plug router. It stores the log on info itself; old modem had to be "fed" the log on data set at boot. This one seems to reconnect faster, which is good, given how often ATT/SBC DSL seems to disconnect. But I had to reset all my downstream gear to just passively connect to the ethernet feed from the modem. Meant taking out all those configurations it had taken a while to set several years ago.

[VoxLocus]

pin asked: The old Airport express supported WPA with WDS for at least the past two years. Did you keep your Express's firmware up to date.

Answer: yes, firmware updated. I tried to use the old Express as a wireless WDS bridge from my Apple Extreme Base Station and kept finding it would work with WEP, but not WPA. Who needs to compute on the front porch anyway? Can't see the computer screen in the sunshine!

Sometimes I think all this gear works differently for different people. Sunspots?

[xebrawerx]

bq. re: I tried to use the old Express as a wireless WDS bridge from my Apple Extreme Base Station and kept finding it would work with WEP, but not WPA.
With good reason, Vox, because this feature is broken.
The new Airport Utility software is disappointing. Not only was the auto-configure feature for WDS left out, but you cannot create Extreme>>Express WDS networks with WPA turned on. I went so far as to replace my UFO Extreme with the new 802.11 boxey model. New Airport, same old b.s. I finally gave up and downgraded everything to WEP so I could use my Express to stream audio again.

Anyone need a perfectly good Extreme? I may donate mine to a technology starved friend.

[markrich2200]

Thanks for the suggestions.
My AE never connects to my G5. I notice last night it shows as a "non connection" on the router. I then connected to another PC and the router lit up so its not the cable or the router. Plainly, I never get the G5 to "see" the AE to configure via AP Utility app. Last night while all was connected, I held in the reset button until the AE began a fast amber flashing, tried to run AP Utility, rebooted modem, router and G5 and nothing but the AE still flashed madly away....
Finally unplugged and called it a night.
I ordered this from the online Apple store. My options are to drive 1.5 hours to Apple store and see if they will swap it out or try to configure it there to verify it works. If its not a dud then I am really in a bind. OR mail it back to Apple and get a replacement in a few days and do this all again, none the wiser...

[dtarr]

There are certainly people here that know a lot more about AE, wireless, etc. than I do, so let me run this by everybody.
I use the previouse version AE to stream iTunes to my A/V receiver, and it works fine. Here's the thing that drives me crazy. I have AE plugged into one of the VCR inputs, but in order to hear music, I have to switch the input to the other VCR/Aux input. In addition, I can also hear the music from other inputs such as CD and Phono, although at a lower volume. I've tried moving the AE unit around, but still the same problem. Here's the real kicker. Before I moved last fall I used the same AE on the same A/V receiver and everything worked fine with no leakage to other inputs, etc. Any thoughts?

[birchtree95]

I'm sitting here reading this article, and something doesn't seem right to me. I've had an airport express for about three years now, and i've often times used it for wireless to wired service. I used to share a house with my landlord, and i plugged it in by her computer and ran ethernet from there to her computer, and she used it for about 4 months without any problems. I've let a friend who's laptop did not have wireless plug into my station. So it seems strange that they think it's a new feature.

I also have a Time Capsule wirelessly hooked to my AirPort Extreme, and i can use the ethernet ports for internet access there too, no special set up.

[Dan Frakes]

birchtree95 said:

I'm sitting here reading this article, and something doesn't seem right to me. I've had an airport express for about three years now, and i've often times used it for wireless to wired service. I used to share a house with my landlord, and i plugged it in by her computer and ran ethernet from there to her computer, and she used it for about 4 months without any problems. I've let a friend who's laptop did not have wireless plug into my station. So it seems strange that they think it's a new feature.

The new feature is that you can now set up the Express so that it allows Ethernet clients to connect to your wireless network without setting the Express up as a relay or remote station and without having to configure a WDS.

[markrich2200]

I managed to get my Airport Express to run today. I tried again to connect via an ethernet cable to my linksys router and this time the Utility "found" the AE. I then used manual configuration, followed up on 2 error messages and turned off NAT on my router. Seconds later I got the GREEN LIGHT and its working fine. After reading all the messages on this post I realize just how much I don't know about networks. I plan to educate myself. That said, the average home user is drawn to the Apple platform because they don't anticipate they will have to become an expert on configuration files. I lost about 20 years of my life screwing around with DOS and then Windows. I saw the light and converted to Apple almost 5 years ago. On my worst Apple day its but a moment in time compared to the eternity I have spent trying to reset an IRQ in Windows!
Thanks to all who post responses so mere mortals can learn!
MR

[maclover009]

I bought this N router and have one other Airport Gigabit N router. I tried to use this for AirTunes and to extend my Gigabit N network and it disappeared multiple times, fried it self, and Apple Reps had no idea what to do. I returned it and they gave me a new one... Same problem. I just upgraded to another Gigabit N router. So much happier. DONT BUY THIS UNTIL THEY GET THE KINKS OUT. Don't get me wrong though... I love Apple. Have an iPhone, iPod, 2 MacBooks, and much more stuff. I mean username is MacLover009 for crying out loud...