Apple Airport Express

Faster Is Better
Now with blazing 802.11n, the affordable AirPort Express is powerful enough to run a home Wi-Fi network, yet small enough to take on the road. Here's some of the ways you can integrate it into your home.

Music AirTunes takes the music from the iTunes library on your computer and sends it wirelessly to any stereo or speakers in your home. All you have to do is plug an AirPort Express into an electrical outlet near those speakers, then connect them with an audio cable. In iTunes, you can choose which speakers you want your music to play on--in your den, living room, or bedroom. If you have more than one AirPort Express connected to speakers, you can play the same music on all your speakers at the same time to create a whole-house musical experience. Plus, if you already have a wireless network in place, you can use AirPort Express to add music to its capabilities.

Wireless Printing With wireless printing through AirPort Express, it’s almost like having a printer in every room of the house. AirPort Express uses the Mac- and PC-compatible Bonjour networking technology to let everyone in the house take advantage of one centrally available printer. Wirelessly, of course. If all you want to do is access your USB printer wirelessly, you don’t even need a broadband Internet connection. You can just set up your AirPort Express for wireless printing and that’s it.

Internet Sharing With AirPort Express connected to your DSL or cable modem, up to 10 users at a time can surf the web, send email, annihilate the competition in multiplayer games, and much more--wire-free. AirPort Express connects people to each other as well. You can wirelessly share photos, movies, and other files without having to worry about slow data transmissions. Nor do you have to concern yourself with a difficult network setup. AirPort Express uses the Bonjour technology in Mac OS X to allow your AirPort-equipped Mac computers running Mac OS X to find each other with no effort on your part--they discover each other just by virtue of being in range of the network.Compact and portable, AirPort Express is also a great way to share Internet access when you go on the road.

802.11n The AirPort Express Base Station now features 802.11n, the next-generation high-speed wireless technology included with most shipping Mac computers and some newer PCs with compatible cards. Based on an IEEE 802.11n draft specification, AirPort Express features two antennas and uses a technology called multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) to transmit multiple data streams simultaneously. The result? AirPort Express delivers data transfer speeds up to five times those of previous-generation 802.11g wireless networks--while achieving up to twice the range. And with its support for both the 2.4GHz and 5GHz wireless frequencies, AirPort Express reduces the possibility of interference from appliances and cordless phones that use the 2.4GHz frequency.

Compatibility
Part Wi-Fi access point. Part wireless router. AirPort Express just works, seamlessly and wirelessly, with all your Wi-Fi devices. In fact, it’s the easiest way for everyone in your family to share a single broadband Internet connection and USB printer without messy cables.

Security The AirPort Express Base Station takes strong measures to keep your online world as safe as possible--from securing your base station to preventing outside intruders. It starts with the industry-standard encryption technologies built into AirPort Express, including WPA/WPA2 and 128-bit WEP.1 When you turn on encryption--easy to do using AirPort Utility--you’ll ensure that only people with the correct password can join your wireless network. AirPort Express includes a built-in firewall that creates a barrier between your network and the Internet. When you set up the base station, the firewall is automatically turned on to keep the bad guys out. For computers with a cable or DSL modem, using AirPort is actually safer than being directly connected to the modem.

AirPort Utility
If you think setting up a wireless network is difficult, think again. AirPort Utility for Mac and Windows guides you through the process, and you’ll have your network up and running in minutes. AirPort Utility does most of the work for you by stepping you through the setup process quickly and easily. For the most basic setup, all you have to do is plug your AirPort Express into an electrical outlet and connect your DSL or cable modem. Then open the AirPort Utility software and just follow the onscreen instructions.

AirPort Express works effortlessly with any computer that uses Wi-Fi standards, whether it’s a Mac or a Dell, HP, IBM, or any other Windows-based PC. That’s because the AirPort Express is compatible with computers using the 802.11a, 802.11b, and 802.11g specifications, and it also works with computers that are 802.11n draft 2.0 compliant.