The "Mod your MacBook" thread

[kaidomac]

I don't have a wireless network at home yet, just plain old broadband. I own a side-by-side duplex and give my tenant free internet access as a perk. When I re-wired the house I ran Cat5 to all three floors on each side. My tenant has a Mac and an Airport. The times I've had a laptop on my side I've been able to connect to his Airport and surf the web.

I'm not saying I want faster wireless as a reason to have an 802.11a compatible WAP/router, since as we've both said, it's the same speed as 802.11g. My reason for suggesting a WAP/router that supports a&g is if you are in an area or situation that is crowded with g channels.

From: http://www.wi-fiplanet.com/tutorials/article.php/1009431

"A big difference with 802.11a is that it operates in the 5GHz frequency band with twelve separate non-overlapping channels. As a result, you can have up to twelve access points set to different channels in the same area without them interfering with each other. This makes access point channel assignment much easier and significantly increases the throughput the wireless LAN can deliver within a given area. In addition, RF interference is much less likely because of the less-crowded 5 GHz band."

Since the MacBooks work with 802.11a why not have this as an option in addition to 802.11g?

As I started this thread by saying I'm a newbie to wireless, it's possible, as you pointed, it may never be an issue. I'm simply raising the question and awarness of the issue.

Do you live in a crowded area? I can see that being a good reason to get 802.11a. One of the downers is that most people and companies run 802.11b/g, so if your neighbor goes out and buys an 802.11a card for his computer, he won't be compatible if he goes anywhere. Unless you can convince him to buy a MacBook If you pick up a router that supports A/B/G, you'd be totally covered.

Also did you punch your own keystone jacks for your CAT5 job? I'm planning on doing that this summer, as I was just running cable through holes in the wall before (pretty messy).

 

[kaidomac]

I just received word that OWC will be offering Firewire enclosures for 2.5" SATA hard drives at the end of June. These can be used to make a bootable backup of OS X from your primary disk using software such as Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper.

 

[Mace]

lol, most of the previous conversation was over my head. Needless to say I went to the some of the sites about wireless networks and learned something.

 

[kaidomac]

lol, most of the previous conversation was over my head. Needless to say I went to the some of the sites about wireless networks and learned something.

I have a short writeup in my G4 Cube blog on my Linksys WRT54GS wireless router:

http://mcproject.blogspot.com/2006/01/getting-unwired.html

Basic idea is this:
1. Buy router (Linksys WRT54GS is an excellent model)
2. Connect router to cable/DSL modem
3. Input settings (passwords, encryption types, etc.)
4. Configure your computers to join the wireless network
5. Enjoy your wireless network!

 

[Mace]

Hollerations! You are the greatest. I'm assuming this hook up will be fine with a MBP.

 

[kaidomac]

Hollerations! You are the greatest. I'm assuming this hook up will be fine with a MBP.

Yup. And any other Mac that has a wireless B or G card. Even my G4 Cube runs well with it, as do all my Windows computers

 

[jim0266]

Do you live in a crowded area? I can see that being a good reason to get 802.11a. One of the downers is that most people and companies run 802.11b/g, so if your neighbor goes out and buys an 802.11a card for his computer, he won't be compatible if he goes anywhere. Unless you can convince him to buy a MacBook If you pick up a router that supports A/B/G, you'd be totally covered.

Also did you punch your own keystone jacks for your CAT5 job? I'm planning on doing that this summer, as I was just running cable through holes in the wall before (pretty messy).

I'm in an urban neighborhood, but when I got my MacBook today and looked at at the number of wireless access points that appeared in the drop-down, I was pretty shocked as there were more than I would have thought for the neighborhood in which I live. I brought home the 1.25Ghz Powerbook I use at work to compare the MP to its wireless capability. I have not had a chance to compare yet. After starting the MB I instantly connected to my tenant's Apple Airport. I'm amazed at how good the connection is from the other side of the house.

After a lot of inconclusive research, I pulled the trigger and ordered a Trendnet TEW-510 (802.11a/b/g) access point - http://www.trendnet.com/products/TEW-510APB.htm. It will be here Friday so we'll see how good it is. So, I don't care what my neighbor buys. That's HIS problem. I can run a,b and g.

I did punch down my own keystone jacks. I had my electrician drop bare lines from all over the house to the basement. One thing did throw me for a loop. I had bought two different brands of jacks and found out that one jack from each brand would not work together. I pulled my hair out until I discovered that was the problem. Punching them down was easy with the correct tool. A 233MHZ PC running FreeBSD and IPF handles the IP masquerading, routing and firewall duties. I pulled a bunch of old SCSI drives from older Macs that had been taken out of service and use those in the firewall, figuring SCSI drives will last longer than IDE drives. A FreeBSD firewall just runs and runs and runs.

I've only had a few hours to play with the MB, a 1.83 version. Initial impression: awesome. I replaced the two 256 chips with two Gigaram 1GB chips from NewEgg. So far no problems with the RAM.

 

[kaidomac]

OWC now has hard drive and ram installation videos, check them out here:

http://eshop.macsales.com/tech_center/index.cfm?page=Video/directory.html

 

[kaidomac]

I'm in an urban neighborhood, but when I got my MacBook today and looked at at the number of wireless access points that appeared in the drop-down, I was pretty shocked as there were more than I would have thought for the neighborhood in which I live. I brought home the 1.25Ghz Powerbook I use at work to compare the MP to its wireless capability. I have not had a chance to compare yet. After starting the MB I instantly connected to my tenant's Apple Airport. I'm amazed at how good the connection is from the other side of the house.

After a lot of inconclusive research, I pulled the trigger and ordered a Trendnet TEW-510 (802.11a/b/g) access point - http://www.trendnet.com/products/TEW-510APB.htm. It will be here Friday so we'll see how good it is. So, I don't care what my neighbor buys. That's HIS problem. I can run a,b and g.

I did punch down my own keystone jacks. I had my electrician drop bare lines from all over the house to the basement. One thing did throw me for a loop. I had bought two different brands of jacks and found out that one jack from each brand would not work together. I pulled my hair out until I discovered that was the problem. Punching them down was easy with the correct tool. A 233MHZ PC running FreeBSD and IPF handles the IP masquerading, routing and firewall duties. I pulled a bunch of old SCSI drives from older Macs that had been taken out of service and use those in the firewall, figuring SCSI drives will last longer than IDE drives. A FreeBSD firewall just runs and runs and runs.

I've only had a few hours to play with the MB, a 1.83 version. Initial impression: awesome. I replaced the two 256 chips with two Gigaram 1GB chips from NewEgg. So far no problems with the RAM.

Looks like a nice router, good luck with it! Let me know how it works out for you.

Is there any special trick to punching the jacks? I was poking around the networking section at Home Depot and it looks like they include the little plastic tool you need, so all you have to do is strip the CAT5 wire and you're in business. Is that right?

 

[jim0266]

Looks like a nice router, good luck with it! Let me know how it works out for you.

Is there any special trick to punching the jacks? I was poking around the networking section at Home Depot and it looks like they include the little plastic tool you need, so all you have to do is strip the CAT5 wire and you're in business. Is that right?

The hardest part is determining which wires go in which slot. It can get tight by the last few wires as it's a lot of wiring in a small space. No need to strip the coating off the individual wires once you free them from the main jacket. When you use the tool to slide them in the slot the metal contacts on the jack slice thru the coating and hold the wires very tight.

A finger nail clipper is a good tool to trim off the excess wire that hangs out the sides of the jack for a tidy job.

I've played with the TrendNet WAP for a few hours and so far it seems like a good unit. I can get a strong signal on my 3rd floor when the unit is down on the first floor. The documentation is really poor and it's obvious it was translated into English. I was able to hack the basics and change the IP over to my network settings and a few other naming touches. But trying to set up WPA security has me very confused at the moment.

 

[alucard]

Has anyone gotten any of the 7200RPM drives from ewiz? If so can you let me know if they were any good? I am thinking of getting one.

Edit: I went ahead and ordered 2 gigs of ram and a hitachi 80gb 7200rpm drive from OWC. I will let you know how the upgrade goes.