[Full Trucker]

I own one of them thar Mac-n-cheese titanium Powerbook computers, one of the models that they DON'T make wireless cards for anymore... welp! After a little eBay style, I am now the proud owner of an original Apple Airport card! WAAAAHOOOOOOO!

I installed it last night (super easy) and am now posting to the via a wifi connection from my b... well, never you mind where I'm sittin'! Ha!

But this thing is SO bitchin'... turned my laptop on after install and it IMMEDIATELY picked up not only our wireless network, but two or three of the neighbors' networks as well! Sweet action!

I'm takin' her into work to see how easy it is to join an Appletalk network. I'm so very stoked!

I know this ain't nuttin' new for most folks, but I've never really needed wifi before. I guess I really don't need it NOW, but what the he11? WELCOME TO 1999! We're glad to have ya!

 

[binary visions]

Once you go wireless, you'll never go back. I love being able to browse the 'monkey or check my email from my porch in the summer.

1999 is glad you stopped by!

 

[narlus]

wireless rules. i've got two notebooks which are linked to the desktop, one a roam-around the house, and the other patched to my stereo.

 

[DamienC]

...and the other patched to my stereo.

Are you doing that using something like Apple's Airport Express base station?

 

[narlus]

i've got an old wireless system (802.01 B? i think they are at G and pre-N now). basically i've got an adapter point/router which goes to my desktop, as well as to the two notebooks via a PCMCIA wireless cards. on the one to my stereo, i've got a 1/8" coaxial -> 2 RCA plugs running from the output of my soundcard to the Tape 2 inputs of my pre-amp. this allows me to play songs from my upstairs desktop (and USB external hard drive) on my downstairs stereo. i've also got another 1/8" - RCA cord which i use from my pre-amp outputs to soundcard input, for digitizing vinyl.

not sure what airport express is or does, but the system i've got works well and i've had it going for about 3+ years now.

 

[binary visions]

<stuff>

That's pretty much the way I have mine set up. I only have the luxury of one laptop (I would like to scrounge another one to have as a dedicated stereo interface), but I run a 2 RCA to 1/8" cable out of my sterero and dock the laptop there when I want to listen to music. All of the music is hosted on my desktop server.

My wireless card is pre-G (ooh, it rhymes), but it streams fast enough for me to listen to whatever music I want and browse the internet at the same time. For large file transfers I just plug the laptop into the wired network.

 

[DamienC]

not sure what airport express is or does, but the system i've got works well and i've had it going for about 3+ years now.

Airport Express is one of Apple's wireless base stations. It has an audio out so you can hook up a stereo to it and play music wirelessly via iTunes on whatever computers are on the network. It presents a pretty clean solution to the particular setup issues at my place.

 

[narlus]

that airtunes looks like a neat item.

one thing which i'd love to do is get a local display of what song is playing at any particular time. obviously my laptop is next to my stereo, but i've also got a cable which goes from that stereo to my surround sound system which is in the room i'm in most of the time. not really sure how that could work, but it would be nice if i could do it somehow.

 

[binary visions]

one thing which i'd love to do is get a local display of what song is playing at any particular time.

You mean, you're in a different room from where your laptop/stereo resides?

Just buy a cheapie monitor (or a flat panel to save space if you feel like spending $$) and a big monitor cable extender (like this), and run it along with your surround wires.

Hell, if you were feeling particularly tech-y, you could install a wireless keyboard - the Logitech ones work from a pretty long distance. That way you could even control your music!

 

[Full Trucker]

...for digitizing vinyl...

Man oh man - this is what I need! I've got a TON of stuff on vinyl that I want digitized... punk stuff not available on CD and whatnot... any tips?

one thing which i'd love to do is get a local display of what song is playing at any particular time.

There USED to be a component that would do this... can't remember what it's called though... maybe an earlier version of Airport Express? I don't know...

Oooh! I was looking for aforementioned component, and found this:

Car audio with a fully integrated iPod gizmo! Features a touch-screen, seven-inch monitor that can display playlist, song and artist information, a clock and any engaged sound enhancement features, and is expected to ship in February 2005... now THAT'S XTR all the way!

 

[narlus]

You mean, you're in a different room from where your laptop/stereo resides?

Just buy a cheapie monitor (or a flat panel to save space if you feel like spending $$) and a big monitor cable extender (like this), and run it along with your surround wires.

Hell, if you were feeling particularly tech-y, you could install a wireless keyboard - the Logitech ones work from a pretty long distance. That way you could even control your music!

sounds good, but i'd probably need at least 100' (it goes down through the floor, in the basement, through teh crawlspace, and back up into the house) ; can you splice those together?

how far away are wireless-ready monitors?

 

[narlus]

Man oh man - this is what I need! I've got a TON of stuff on vinyl that I want digitized... punk stuff not available on CD and whatnot... any tips?

my boss just got some mp3 player sorta thing which can take audio inputs and produce mp3s an output; can't recall the MFG or model but i can get it if you want. i use the aforementioned method of playing a record adn then capturing it on hard drive, via the soundcard input (I use CoolEdit pro for capture and editing; you can do tons of stuff like amplitude adjustment, fade outs, noise reduction, click/pop elimination, cutting into individual tracks, etc). but anyway you look at it, it's gonna have to happen in real-time. it's kind of a pain, which is why i haven't done all that much (probably 150 singles and a couple dozen records).

 

[binary visions]

sounds good, but i'd probably need at least 100' (it goes down through the floor, in the basement, through teh crawlspace, and back up into the house) ; can you splice those together?

Like this?

That previous one, incidentally, was a male/male cable which you don't want - I didn't look closely enough.

how far away are wireless-ready monitors?

Check it

 

[Transcend]

I am doing the same idea for my entertainment center, only I am running an old 1800+ athlon server in a closet that taps into both the video in (svideo) and audio in (optical) of the entertainment system. Any of the 6 computer in the house can now tap into the TV and surround sound system in the basement.

So much fun to switch between the tv and surfing the web with a wireless KB and mouse i keep handy.

What I need now is an Svideo to coax converter so that I can plug the server into a tv next to my bed to watch torrented episodes of battlestar gallactica!

 

[pixelninja]

Airport Express is one of Apple's wireless base stations. It has an audio out so you can hook up a stereo to it and play music wirelessly via iTunes on whatever computers are on the network. It presents a pretty clean solution to the particular setup issues at my place.

This looks EXACTLY like what I'm looking for for my home. I may have to head over to an Apple store and check one out.

 

[DamienC]

This looks EXACTLY like what I'm looking for for my home. I may have to head over to an Apple store and check one out.

Ha! That's where I'm off to right now! I'll probably get one and set it up tonight. Will post feedback following.

 

[pixelninja]

Will post feedback following.

Please do

 

[DamienC]

Please do

I ended up getting that Apple Airport Express base station last night. The unit is nice and compact - just a little bigger than a standard Apple AC adapter. The setup was super easy and I had my wireless network going in about 10 minutes (including skimming through the instructions, setting up MAC address filtering, WEP, etc.). The only hiccup was that their automated setup wizard software isn't compatible with Win2k which is what I'm running on my laptop so you have to configure the network settings manually through their configuration utility. No big deal though since that's how I would have preferred to do it anyway.

The Airtunes feature integrated seamlessly with iTunes. It adds a menu on the bottom of the iTunes window that lets you choose where you want to output the audio. So now I can bring up a playlist wherever the laptop happens to be and beam music wirelessly to the speakers connected to the base station. The audio quality suffers a little bit but not terribly. So far...

 

[pixelninja]

I ended up getting that Apple Airport Express base station last night. The unit is nice and compact - just a little bigger than a standard Apple AC adapter. The setup was super easy and I had my wireless network going in about 10 minutes (including skimming through the instructions, setting up MAC address filtering, WEP, etc.). The only hiccup was that their automated setup wizard software isn't compatible with Win2k which is what I'm running on my laptop so you have to configure the network settings manually through their configuration utility. No big deal though since that's how I would have preferred to do it anyway.

The Airtunes feature integrated seamlessly with iTunes. It adds a menu on the bottom of the iTunes window that lets you choose where you want to output the audio. So now I can bring up a playlist wherever the laptop happens to be and beam music wirelessly to the speakers connected to the base station. The audio quality suffers a little bit but not terribly. So far...

Can you go into more detail about the audio quality?

Did you already have a wireless network setup? I do, and I'm curious if the A.E. will automatically detect it. I'm running XP on my laptop.

 

[DamienC]

Can you go into more detail about the audio quality?

Did you already have a wireless network setup? I do, and I'm curious if the A.E. will automatically detect it. I'm running XP on my laptop.

The audio output through the base station sort of sounded like someone turned the treble and bass knobs down a notch or two. Not terrible but noticeable.

I did not already have a wireless network prior this but supposedly (according to their website) it will auto detect an existing network if you're just using it for the music capabilities. I'd definitely talk to someone at Apple about this beforehand though.

 

[mack]

Before we had wireless, when i came home from school I would just use our neighbors connection, cus it didnt have a password. Now we have our own. But my desktop is kinda hard to move around.

 

[pixelninja]

The audio output through the base station sort of sounded like someone turned the treble and bass knobs down a notch or two. Not terrible but noticeable.

I did not already have a wireless network prior this but supposedly (according to their website) it will auto detect an existing network if you're just using it for the music capabilities. I'd definitely talk to someone at Apple about this beforehand though.

Thanks for the good info. I may swing by the Apple store over the weekend and talk to someone there.

One more question: Are you hooked up to your stereo, or a pair of powered speakers?

 

[DamienC]

One more question: Are you hooked up to your stereo, or a pair of powered speakers?

Powered speakers

 

[pixelninja]

Powered speakers

HA! These are the powered speakers I have:

http://www.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=4&subcategory=27&product=10329

 

[dexter]

to bad that deck is made by clarion. I have my alpine hooked up via a hardwiring job that i did to my deck, the alpine controls all the functions also but its no a 7 inch monitor (my old one broke sad times)