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Wi-fi question
: I’m sitting in my hotel room with my neat Apple thingie connected to the hotel network so I can operate wirelessly in the room. And it’s great. Except that frequently, my laptop decides to hook onto one of the other stray wi-fi signals around. I go into the advance properties and take them all off my preferred list. Still happens. Any way, you experts out there, that I can have my laptop (a Viao with XP) lock onto the Apple thingie and not have affairs with other signals?
Under the properties for your wireless network, click “Wireless Networks” and then “Advanced”. Make sure that the “Automatically Connected to non-preferred networks is not checked. Then make sure none of those other networks are in your “Preferred Networks” list.
One last thing to note is that if you have a weak signal from your primary network, you will perodically be disconnected and it may give you the option of connecting to one of the other stronger signals.
Hope this helps.
You can have a WEP key on the Airport, that will force the XP to lock to it.
Or you can:
1) Go to Control Panel –> Network Connections 2) Doubleclick on your “Wireless Connection ” entry in the list box.
3) Click on the Properties button
4) Click on the Wireless Networks tab
5) Click on the Move Up/Move Down buttons in the ‘Preferred Networks’ listbox as needed.
Wireless laptops are SUCH sluts!
Go APPLE, Jeff. Stop this Viao nonsense.
Non-sequitor: Are you aware of this? The United Church of Christ is calling for the FCC to pull licenses from two Florida TV stations who are not interested in running their ad: http://www.accessibleairwaves.org/ (UCC’s link to the FCC. Here we go again.)
A neater solution than the excellent advice above? Download Boingo’s Windows software client. Even if you don’t subscribe to their service ($22/month for unlimited Wi-Fi at the hotels, airports, and coffeeshops in their aggregated network), their software includes a very fine profile management tool that should be built into Windows. It lets you set networks you want to join and then you use Boingo to join those local networks. It’ll show you Boingo networks and other networks, but I think it has the best profile management under Windows that you can get for free. There are some inexpensive ($40, I think) tools for managing Wi-Fi profiles, too.
The second easier thing? Get a Mac running Virtual PC for your limited Windows needs.
I didn’t go to all the trouble of inventing WiFi to have it running on Steve Jobs’ trashy gear. Stick with your Windows dealie or upgrade to Linux, but remember that Macs are strictly for girlie-girls.
Listen, Mr. I invented Wi-Fi (damn, you did, didn’t you), a MAC is not a Mac, but a Mac has MACs, and that’s the fact. When I was a kid, I had to carry bits 10 miles uphill in both directions, and so please read these following instructions on how to suck eggs, grandma!
Anyway, Macs are Unix boxes with pretty faces on them. Get used to it. Should I call you Gov. Bennett, or Mr. Schwarzenexperiment?
Good point, Glenn. Unfortunately, I was wired at the factory to respond with vitriol every time I read “get a Mac” so I have no choice but to act the way I do. If you said “get a Mach” that would be much better.
by “Apple Thingie” I presume you mean the Apple Airport Express?
your gonna lose us with that technical jargon of yours… ;)
(I know… cheap shot… )
Glenn:
Boingo is good. The strange thing is that even though the signal to the Airport is, of course, excellent, since I’m one foot away, one side or the other still wants to cut off every 15 minutes or so. Boingo now reconnects just to that but it has to go through that dance. I don’t know why.
After you have a good connection to the wifi network go into the services control panel and turn off wireless zero config. It should keep the connection from jumping to stray networks.
Next time you want to change the wireless network you connect to you should start the service though.
Hope this helps…
Jeff, Check out your Express’s firmware: there’s a well-known but inconsistent problem that causes that, and Apple released a large firmware upgrade (with Windows downloads, too) about two weeks ago that increased stability of my Express unit.
Richard, if you’re still monitoring this thread, that Mac/Mach joke is the most obscure hilarious thing I think I’ve ever read.