Stuck in an AirPort

By Chris Taylor

Like all softhearted computer geeks, I have a profoundly emotional relationship with all things Macintosh. Windows PCs have always struck me as cold, tense machines prone to byzantine internal-code conflicts; their Apple counterparts are easygoing, intuitive open books. For very little effort, Macs provide a lot of reward. Right now, they're the only machines capable of making the Internet revolution happen for everyone, not just the techno-savvy top tier.

But because I invest so much love and hope in Apple, it maddens me when the company falls short of its plug-and-play promise. And too often it does. Take the AirPort and iBook setup I tested. The idea behind it is deliciously simple; the setup was another story.

The AirPort base station, a little UFO-like device that plugs into your phone line, acts as an Internet radio transmitter. Your iBook, iMac or G4 PowerMac loaded with an AirPort card can be online (or hooked together) anywhere in your home, without wires, at 56k connection speeds (AirPort also supports superspeedy cable modems or DSL). Since normal wireless connections creep along at 9,600 bps, this is nothing short of revolutionary.

So when Apple sent me the device, my head was filled with ideas for crazy AirPort experiments. I would download recipes in the kitchen. I would do Christmas shopping from the bathroom. And because the range of this thing is supposed to be more than 150 ft., I would Web-surf wire free while sipping a beer in the Irish pub across the street from my apartment.

(As soon as I got the iBook, by the way, I knew the Irish-pub idea was out. The machine turned out to be more feminine than I expected. It's a zippy little laptop, but the rubberized blueberry-and-white clamshell design looks like something Barbie would use. I'm still willing to consider that experiment as soon as Apple makes a wireless machine that looks good next to a pint of Guinness.)

Then I tried to set up the system and entered AirPort hell--the Mac equivalent of spending the night on a plastic seat at J.F.K. The AirPort software made both the iBook and my brand-new iMac crash repeatedly. On the rare occasions they recognized the presence of the base station, both machines obstinately refused to connect to it.

I spotted a lot of confusion between the Remote Access control panel, the TCP/IP control panel and the AirPort extension. Such balkanized Internet responsibility doesn't seem right for a company aiming to build a computer for Everyman.

Much wailing and gnashing of teeth later, I called Apple's tech support. Its first suggestion was to hook up my iBook to the base station with an Ethernet cable--not included--and do a "hardware reset." Did someone say wireless? Eventually, an Apple product manager discovered the fault. Turns out AirPort needs the arcane "name server address" from my Internet service provider, something it had not asked for during the plug-and-play software setup.

The manager said this was a relatively rare "known issue"--code phrase for bug--that Apple will address in AirPort 2.0. I was wireless at last, but it had cost me a day's worth of headaches. This sort of thing happens with Windows all the time, of course. It only hurts with the ones you love.

For more information on the AirPort system, go to apple.com Questions for Chris? E-mail him at cdt@well.com