Apple Airport Express
I use a lot of Apple gear, my laptop is an Apple, my ipod is an Apple, OK, that isn't much, only two items, but I'm a confirmed Apple user now so when my old router died I decided to give the Apple's Airport Express a whirl.
First of all it's tiny, I think it might actually be smaller than the powerpack for my MacBook Pro, but it looks similar in that they're both small white boxes with rounded corners. The old router must have been three times the size and had three antenna, whilst the new one has none.
How Apple managed to get it working as well as they have puzzles me. If my old router with three antennas and a separate power pack couldn't do the job well, how did Apple manage to get the Airport Express to work.
Configuring the Airport Express is relatively straightforward, though it does require a couple of steps to be completed first. The first step is to attach all the required cables.
My Internet is always on, so I expected to see a green light saying the Airport Express was able to access my ISP. In fact I saw an amber light. Apparently this is normal, and the disk from the package needs to be inserted and the Airport Express Utility program run.
This configures the Apple Airport Express as a network, and gives the network a password. After that you wait for a minute while it authenticates. After that you're connected. It happily works with two laptops, I haven't tried it with more. So far it's proving to be an excellent investment.
