Which Airport for my PowerBook G4?

Question

Hi..
I would like to connect Airport Extreme or Express to my old Power Book G4 running on Mac OS x (10.3.9) running on 550 Mhz. 256 MB Ram to a NTL connection.
Which hardware do I need to buy, as I've been told my computer is kinda old now!
I wanna know because I'm hopefully going to get a new G5 Imac as my main computer, but with the spare Power book G4 i want to make wireless around the house!
I'm just confused to which will make the above easier as I'm unsure what extreme or express does?
Many Thanks
Hakka.x
PowerBook G4 Mac OS X (10.3.9) 550 Mhz PowerPC G4. 256 MB SDRAM.
PowerBook G4 Mac OS X (10.3.9) 550 Mhz PowerPC G4. 256 MB SDRAM.

Answer 1

Pipex are pretty good. Personally I've always hated AOL - it's a very very clumsy interface and they go to a great deal of trouble to control how you use the net.
If Pipex give you the option of a wireless router then you may as well get that. Alternatively, I can definitely recommend the Netgear DG834G. Both the new imac and the Powerbook (when you put a card in it) will work wirelessly with it. shop around for a price, it is about £60 with free delivery from Amazon.
The DG834g has built in wireless, adsl modem (plugs straight into adsl line) and 4 ports - so you could wire your imac to it if it is close enough.
As for making the Powerbook wireless, the best and easiest option is to get a PCMCIA wireless card. An Airport card will just cost more to do the same job in what is gradually turning into an old machine. Apple airport uses the broadcom chipset, so a broadcom chipset based card will act just like a native Airport card in your mac. the main company using broadcom chipsets is Sonnet. They have a card called the Sonnett Aria Extreme PCMCIA - It is £50 here;
http://www.macheaven.co.uk/?page=proddetail∏=1344
and might be a bit cheaper if you shop around or know anyone in the US who can get one for you.
I hope that helps. Pipex may offer a USB modem as part of setup, it's not worth having - very difficult to get from that to wireless networking, although if you are really stuck for cash you could attach the imac with usb to the net and then sgare that connection with the Powerbook - which would save you the cost of the router - but you'd basically be using the desktop as a router which would have to be left on all the time. Personally I'd go with the Netgear.
Also - Pipex have a deal whereby if you swicth your phone calls over through them they give you cheap rates and 1000-3000 mins for £4 per month or so - you might want to look into that at the same time - cheaper than BT if you use the phone much - and international rates are pretty good. You don't lose your BT line, just route the actual calls via Pipex - so you have a fixed/low cost for the actual calls.
That's all I can think of for now, sorry there isn't a cheaper solution. I hope that helps.
Best of luck.