Advice? Networking Airport Express, old iMac and ethernet converter/switch

Got an old iMac (266 mHz, OS 10.3.9, 384M RAM) I'm trying to get wireless and network with wife's laptop and (in a few weeks) a new MacBook. Internet is from a wireless provider (Clearwire.net) and its modem hooks into iMac's ethernet port. Works great.
Also have an Airport Express and I see two options here: Get an ethernet converter for the iMac or an ethernet switch that would connect to the Airport Express and the iMac (Clearwire modem, iMac and Airport Express are in same room, so wire connections not a problem).
The latter is cheaper (switch vs. converter), but would tie me down to that room. How much of a hassle would it be to network the iMac through the converter since it doesn't have an Airport card? Can I set up Airport Express through the Airport Assistant software in OS 10.3.9 on the iMac even though it doesn't (and can't) have a card?

All I can tell you is how I have my home network setup and hopefully that will give you some ideas. I have DSL at home which came with a DSL modem / Wireless router made by Westell. I have an eMac running 10.3.9 which I have an Airport Extreme card installed. I have my old "Grape" tray-loading iMac running OS9.2.2 for which I purchased an Ethernet-to-WiFi bridge device. And finally I have an ancient Windows ME running laptop on which I have a USB-to-WiFi device (I got it in a trade). All three of these I was able to setup and configure to access the internet via the DSL wireless router.
So to answer one of your questions, yes the Ethernet-to-WiFi bridges work fine, are OS independent, do not require drivers, and won't tie up your valuable USB port instead using the Ethernet port you likely are not using anyway.
However, the one thing I have not bothered to do is to share the computers with each other. In other words, all of them can connect to the internet but none of them are set up to see the others or share files. For what little sharing or file moving I need to do, I just use an USB Flash drive, which all three computers can see/use fine and transfer stuff that way if I need to.
Hope that at least helps a little with your quest,
Patrick

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