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I'm getting a 12" pb this summer for college (at least that's the current plan... things might change after MWNY).  I know that when I'm home I can set the Airport up at our cablemodem downstairs and use my new pb upstairs, and will probably go crazy if I don't, but will I need to have one  while I'm at college?  Will the few months out of the year that I'm home justify shelling out the extra dough?  Should I just get an Airport card installed in my pb and then hope to leech off someone at school (and if so, is there any way to find out if there would be someone before I get there?)

-Brian

Well, Airport really is something.  I couldn't live without it.

At school there will probably be wireless networks on campus.  Here at the UW, there are networks in the Student Union and in the Engineering building - I can surf the net during class (not that i would ).  There are several dorms with wireless, and depending on how things are set up at your school, you may have ethernet coming into the dorm rooms - if so you could set your base station  up in your room.  Even with a dial up account you can use airport - just get the base station with a modem in  it.

I've also used the Airport in a couple of cafes, and of course at the Apple Store.

There are a lot more places that are wireless than I woould have thought.

There's probably no way to know if anybody at school will have airport (or any other manifestation of 802.11 b/g) next year.  I'm assuming you'll be in a dorm, which will increase the odds, but nothing's certain.  I guess you could try to borrow a friend's computer with a wireless card (assuming you know somebody who has one) and wander around the dorm right now checking for signal strength.  If you don't find many dead spots now, I'd imagine you wouldn't next year either  (although, there's probably more dead space in fall when people are just moving in).

In any case, you'll probably love being able to wander wherever you want with the computer.  Yeah, I know you'll use it mostly in the room, but now you won't have to worry about cables and such.

Another option (although others may not respond too well to this one) is to get the basestation , and turn on MAC addressing and encryption.  If others want to leech of of your network, they could give you a beer or something (you are 21, right???) in exchange for letting them on.  This, however, may not endear you to them.

Finally, do you have ethernet in the dorm?  If so, you may consider a brand other than Apple -- I'm happy with my Netware router.  It wasn't hard to set up at all -- even I needed very little help from the Apple discussion boards -- and that related only to turning on encryption.  If, however, you have to use dial-up at school, then the Airport Base Station may be significantly easier to configure (in fact, I don't know how many of the other wireless router offer a modem).

That other Mac magazine reviewed a series of 802.11b routers last year.  I found it helpful http://www.macworld.com/2002/07/reviews/routers/

I'm getting a 12" pb this summer for college (at least that's the current plan... things might change after MWNY).  I know that when I'm home I can set the Airport up at our cablemodem downstairs and use my new pb upstairs, and will probably go crazy if I don't, but will I need to have one  while I'm at college?  Will the few months out of the year that I'm home justify shelling out the extra dough?  Should I just get an Airport card installed in my pb and then hope to leech off someone at school (and if so, is there any way to find out if there would be someone before I get there?)

-Brian

Why are you set on leaving the Base Station home? If you buy the base station for use with your PowerBook then why don't you connect it to the cable modem at home and to your school network at school?

Later, Frank

Why are you set on leaving the Base Station home? If you buy the base station for use with your PowerBook then why don't you connect it to the cable modem at home and to your school network at school?

Later, Frank

This is exactly what I'll be doing...the AE Base Station will be setup in my home when my 17" PB arrives, and then it'll be going w/ me to my dorm when classes start in August 2003.

I hadta make this decision as well, and I'm glad I got it.  First off, I needed a router.  Guess what...the AE Base Station *is* a router.  Next, I wanted to be able to do homework in bed, I mean what's more comfortable, some Wal-Mart chair or your nice, comfortable bed.  What I also like is the fact that I'm plugging my USB-printer into my AE Base Station so along w/ wireless internet/LAN access, I'll have wireless printing capabilities.  So instead of having to plug the printer into my PB's USB port everytime I wanna print, it's already setup wirelessly, so I can just hit print!

Also, I'm gonna password my AE Base Station, and if any of my pals wanna "borrow" some wireless bandwitch, I can give them the password in exchange for goods, money, rides, etc.  Too, the AE Base Station has a built-in firewall to protect your computer and your LAN that's connected to it, which is a very nice security feature.

I could go on and on about it's benefits, but give this site a gander:
Click Here and be sure to click on "At Home" and "On Campus".

Good luck w/ your decision, and feel free to post any other questions!

Never thought about using the ABS as a USB print server.  That's a good point, although your friends may be tempted to use up your ink fairly quickly. 

BTW my wireless router is Netgear (MR314), not Netware.  I've got 4 ethernet ports as well as 1 uplink port.  Connect my desktop to one of the ports.  Also, I picked up a surplus LW Select 360 that I was able to hook (via a localtalk-ethernet bridge) into my router, and it works great.  If you think you might need appletalk, be sure to pick up a router that can handle appletalk packets over wireless.  (See the prior link).  I had initially picked up a router from SMC -- it seemed like a great deal, but wouldn't route appletalk (although tech support kept saying it did) which meant I couldn't print over wireless.  I returned it and I'm much happier with Netgear.  No probs.