Buying advice needed

kelib

At home I currently have a traditional network of 2 PCs as well as 2 Macs with cables all over the house. I'm going to buy me a wireless base station as well as Airport and PC cards. What I like to know is this:



1) What type of card should I get for my iMac G4 800?



2) Is it possible with either AirPort Express or AirPort Extreme to allocate maximum amount of bandwidth for each user on the network?



3) Is it possible to temporarily suspend a single computer without having to do the setup process again?



Thanks in advance

kelib

kelib

Thanks for the help guys



Anyways. I've found out that I should buy the old Airport card for me iMac. It would however be nice if someone could tell me if it's possible to allocate maximum amount of bandwidth for each 'puter on the network?



Cheers

kelib

gsxrboy

I think its only possible if you use one machine as a gateway to the net and use it to share the connection thru it to the other machines..

reg

Bandwidth between your machines won't be your problem with either airport or AE. Your bottle neck will be your modem. We share iPhoto and iTunes between macs and surf with several machines without any problems. Our problem is that we only get about 2.5 Mbs from our cable modem. At least it is better than dial up. Also an idle computer will not take up any bandwidth. Once xgrid is availible you will want to keep all your macs up all the time. The airport admin does not have anything about limiting bandwidth to any client.



reg

johnq

Quote:

Originally posted by kelib

2) Is it possible with either AirPort Express or AirPort Extreme to allocate maximum amount of bandwidth for each user on the network?



3) Is it possible to temporarily suspend a single computer without having to do the setup process again?

My setup goes from:



Cable Modem ->

Netgear 4 port Router ->

Port 1. Airport Base Station (primarily for my iBook, but I have 3 housemates as users through the ABS too)

Port 2. XBOX via wired Ethernet

Port 3. iMac via Wired Ethernet

Port 4. Spare Ethernet Cable for when I want to download faster to the iBook.



I have a closed Airport network which requires me to first enter each user's Airport card number (MAC address). Granted, there is no way to turn off a user temporarily but I just change the last digit/letter of the Airport ID and make note of the real one next to the user's name. Like if it is 02:00:05:C3:B1:6E I'll change it to F and put (E) next to his username. Chances of a person coming within range of the network with an Airport card number of 02:00:05:C3:B1:6F is essentially nil (but it is theoretically possible so it is "bad security". Apple really should let you temporarily turn off individual users.)



Anyway I have turned off Internet access from nonpayment (we split Internet). Someone also abused it by using Bit Torrent by downloading stuff in his room all day while he was away at work! This made the network unusable. I scanned the network (I can't recall the utility but it charted web usage via wireless) and I removed his account until I was able to speak to him.



I make it sound like I never see my housemates but there are times when you don't want to go around to everyone's rooms to sort this stuff out.



You can also block sites by domain or keyword via the NetGear router's admin webpage.

kelib

Thanks big time both of you. My problem is exactly the same as yours, I have a person that's downloading virtually 24 hours. That is before I started suspending him temporarily and threatening him of terminating him permanently from the network. I'm just a bit worried how I can do this after going wireless. But the fact that it's possible makes me feel a little more at ease.



BTW, I've made my order through the Euro-AppleStore and delivery date is set to July 15th.