using airport express in a dorm?

[macOSX-tastic]

hi all,

i will be going to university tomorrow, and shall be living in a hall of residence with other students.

i realise that many student nowadays have wireless capable computers, and i wish to purchase an airport express station to have wireless flexibility in my room. is there any way of putting a password or authentication key on the connection so only i and people that i designate will be able to use it?

any advice much appreciated.

tastic

 

[gwuMACaddict]

most schools won't let you set up your own wireless network. it's usually in the IT user agreement.

 

[macOSX-tastic]

ah..that may cause a snag....i cant see anything about it in the agreement, but i guess its better to be safe than sorry....plus saving me £90 odd.

i guess i shall just have to use that mosterous gray cable.....connected to my beautiful powerbook!!!

tastic

 

[chucknorris]

most schools won't let you set up your own wireless network. it's usually in the IT user agreement.

Sure, but he's going to set one up.

God knows plenty of people in the dorms here have wireless routers.

Now to address the question, you can certainly put a password on the network (using airport admin utility I believe). In addition you can make it so only specific computers may connect to your network, and so your network is hidden.

 

[Mechcozmo]

Yes, you can apply a password. And you can also set it so the network does not appear unless you type in the network name. Useful if you need to hide the network from someone.

 

[yellow5]

How big is your dorm man?

Just get a 25ft Cat5 cable and you'll be set.

I don't think you really need to drop 130 bucks to go wireless in a 12' x 12' room.

I dunno, just me.

 

[Chundles]

One of my old college rooms had just one power outlet and the phone/ethernet outlet was on the other side of the room to where you could put anything. I had a 10m Cat5 cable and 4 extension leads strapped to the walls and the ceiling attached to powerboards - must have been at least 15 different appliances running off two plugs. But it held up and actually looked kinda cool.

 

[Macabron]

Besides what everyone else has said, you can also lower the transmission power so that it covers a small area around the express base station.
That and bieng a hidden network should work.

 

[macOSX-tastic]

i would just like the flexibility of not being tethered to my desk...i like to work in different environs.

i know it may seem silly to some, but im willing to pay £90 for that.

i dont even know what my room looks like yet, so i dont know.

thanks for the input guys, is the ability to configure network visibility and passwords included in the software? or is it already located in preferences>network?
thanks

tastic

 

[KittenKrusher]

At my Uni we aren't suppose to have out own wireless networks, but I know of atleast 4 dorms that do. They simply hide the network so only they know what it is.

 

[crazydreaming]

I'm living in a 2 bedroom/4 person suite with a living room. For the first week or so, we connected using the old way: an Ethernet cable.

But I realized unplugging and plugging back in was silly when I had an Airport Express sitting in my desk.

So now, we have a wireless network. I lowerd the strength, made it password protected, and hidden. It's awesome! It's hooked up to my JBL Creature speakers and my printer, so now, we can be in the living room online, printing, playing tunes, whatever. Plus there's never anything to plug in when I bring my computer back to the room, just open it up!.

Watch out though, my roomates have played a trick on me once. I was sitting in front of my computer (and speakers) and my roomate decided to start blasting music on my speakers... I jumped quite a bit...

The only downside is now I can't share my iTunes library with the rest of the Residence Hall, nor can I view theirs.