Time Capsule & Airport Extreme

Now before saying these are Apple products, and scaring 90% of the readers off seeing as they are Windows users, they are applicable to both, with different degrees of functionality.

Firstly for all users:

The Apple Time Capsule is a 802.11n wireless router for both Mac and PC, and my recent experience in setting one up gave me the clear feeling that this was the easiest wireless network device I have ever set up.  I know I often sound like an Apple convert (yeah, ok, that is exactly what I am), but boy, did they nail the end user experience spot on for ease of use.

It would have been just as easy if I was setting up a brand new wireless network at home, but in this case I was replacing an existing one.  It configured itself, asked a few brief questions (the most complex being – is the computer you are currently on needing access to the wireless network?) and told me when to turn off the old device and plug the new one in (1 power cable, 1 ethernet cable).

This is the same as setting up the Apple Airport Extreme (and presumably the Airport Express) – and in fact it is basically an Airport Extreme that is built into the Time Capsule.

Now if I wanted, I could plug in an external (USB) harddrive or printer, and have them accessible to all the computers on the network (wireless or plugged in directly to the router.

So far, the experience for a Windows or Mac user is identical – in fact on my network I have a Mac and a PC laptop, and both are running happily on this.  In addition, my mobile phone, and iPod Touch are also configured to use it and surf the web.  I could (if I could see a point), give access to the Wii as well (which also has a wireless capability).

Now, for PC users (and pre-OSX Leopard users) the Time Capsule is also an external harddrive, and can be used with your own backup software for wireless backup.  Which is cool, but isn’t any different in functionality to using the Airport Extreme with a USB external harddrive (ok, perhaps a bit faster, and you’d have to factor the cost of the separate drive into the equation).

For OSX Leopard (10.5) users on Mac, the TIme Capsule comes into its own.  This device, with either 500GB or 1TB (1000GB) of storage works seamlessly with Time Machine to keep a running history of files on your computer, allowing you to go back in time to any previous point to find a since deleted, or changed file and returning it to the current time.  It is very very cool.  It keeps a lot of history (up to the point that the drive is full, and then deletes the oldest points), but what is nice is it is doing this quietly, without fuss in the background.  It backs up ever hour for a day, then keeps the last 24 hours of backups.  In addition, it keeps a daily backup for a week, and a weekly backup for ever (until the disk is full, and the oldest get dropped).

Time Machine

Using WEP on a Mac

I’ve been occasionally required to set up wireless networks (802.11x), often on Windows machines, but it sometimes has been with a Mac (OSX) machine.

Part of the security of a wireless network is enabling the WEP settings – the wired equivalent protocol. Ie, making the wireless network as secure as needing the person to actually have access to the building and plug into the wired network. It does this (in a very basic way) by encrypting the signal. The key used to encrypt the signal is provided to both the router and the computer, so they know how to unencrypt the signal when it arrives.

There is a (minor) problem if you are trying to do this with a Mac. If the network point (the wireless router) is not an Apple, then you need to modify the key that you provide to the Mac.

If the key you are using is a hexadecimal code (eg 125F97DC), then you need to precede the string you type into the Mac with a $ sign. (eg $125F97DC)

If the key you are using is ASCII (eg Memphis), then you need to put quotation marks around it when giving it to the Mac (eg “Memphis”)