How to travel with new MBP/Airport extreme?

We have enjoyed our new MBP for almost a month now. We have never
before owned a portable computer.

We have traveled with our iphone, and like its convenience.

Soon we will travel by car to Tennessee to visit in-laws, and have a few Q's:

Unless we were using it, our MBP has been in sleep mode/charging. Should
we turn it off for car travel (InCase sleeve) or it doesn't matter?

Our in-laws have Charter Cable modem with windows vista desktop. Can we
use our Airport extreme plugged into their modem for wireless connection
during our visit?

Regarding travel, how sensitive to vibration is our MBP while on/open?

Thanks for helping out the newbies

JR/NR

GaZoom said:

We have enjoyed our new MBP for almost a month now. We have never
before owned a portable computer.

We have traveled with our iphone, and like its convenience.

Soon we will travel by car to Tennessee to visit in-laws, and have a few Q's:

Unless we were using it, our MBP has been in sleep mode/charging. Should
we turn it off for car travel (InCase sleeve) or it doesn't matter?

Click to expand...

When your machine is in sleep mode, the machine uses just enough power to maintain the content of its memory. Your hard drive is parked and is safe to be subjected to movement as though it were turned off. There is no need for concern over shutting it down, unless you forsee having it off AC power for days at a time.

Our in-laws have Charter Cable modem with windows vista desktop. Can we
use our Airport extreme plugged into their modem for wireless connection
during our visit?

Click to expand...

If they do not already have a wireless router of some sort, you can certainly use the AirPort as a wireless router. The Ethernet cable is likely connected directly to their PC. You'll need to re-route that to the WAN/Internet port on the AirPort device and then plug their PC into one of the 3 network ports on the rear of the AirPort so that it can continue to have Internet access. No further configuration should be necessary.

Regarding travel, how sensitive to vibration is our MBP while on/open?

Thanks for helping out the newbies

JR/NR

Click to expand...

The hard drive is the only vibration sensitive component and while it is spinning, it can be upset by extreme vibration or movement. Most modern laptop hard drives do have measures designed to deal with these kinds of conditions, so it is not of great concern, although I would recommend backing it up if you are not in the habit of doing so already.

Thank you very much cwa107 for your expert and clearly explained help, that is just
the info we needed!

Proof positive that this is the best forum ever

JR/NR

Glad I could help. Enjoy your trip.

One small caution. If your parents have the PC plugged directly into the cable modem, and if the PC is then getting its IP address from the cable company directly and not from DHCP in the modem, adding your Airport between may change the way the IPs are handled. Your MBP will adjust nicely, but the Windows box may need some attention, then more when you disconnect the Airport to leave. What might work is that if the cable modem has more than one port, connect the Airport to an open port on the modem and leave the Windows box connection as it is. I don't have an Airport myself, so I can't comment on the ability of that box to accept a connection like that.

At home, Windstream DSL runs to the Windstream modem.

Ethernet cable runs out from modem to Airport Extreme.

Second ethernet cable runs out from Airport Extreme to old Dell PC desktop.

Airport sends wireless to our new MBP and iphone in 100 ft+ radius.

We had hoped to have this same set up while visiting in-laws, but as turns out
it wasn,t needed.

Three neighbors to the in-laws have wireless available, so Airport stayed in the box.

Thanks for all the info!

JR/NR