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TiBook Wi-Fi Range Hack: New Card

Posted by timothy on from the escape-from-doctor-farraday's-island dept.

eggboard writes "Apple likes the profit margins on its internal AirPort card (still $100 three years after introduction), but the Faraday cage that is the Titanium PowerBook keeps the AirPort card and the TiBook's internal antenna from achieving the same range as the plastic-cased white dual-USB iBooks. Wired News reports today on Cliff Skolnick et al's hack, which is simply to use a 200 mW PC Card coupled with OS X-compatible drivers. The cost winds up less than an AirPort Card, and you can get a model with an external antenna jack, too."

9 of 250 comments (clear)

  1. How does it affect battery life? by burgburgburg · · Score: 4, Interesting

    If the new card is pumping out 200 milliwatts of radio signal as opposed to the usual 30- to 100-milliwatt range of most 802.11b cards, what is the hit on battery life?

  2. Re:in other news by XorNand · · Score: 4, Interesting


    I don't know about the new iMacs, but the older candy-colored ones had a standard power cord. They are translucent with multicolored wires (like the iMac they came with). I'm using one on my PC right now, in fact. Just another one of those little details that Apple is known for. How many PC vendors would bother with custom made power cords?

    --
    Entrepreneur : (noun), French for "unemployed"
  3. Apple will lose profits not stability by asv108 · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Here's a little experiment, go to any Mac forum and read up on hardware/software bugs, you'll find that 70% of them have been due to poorly designed third party software. Jobs may be greedy, but he also wants you have to the best, most reliable software out there.

    See this is the problem with Mac fanboys is they take PR as fact. Steve Jobs doesn't care about software reliability, he cares about make profits. I'm not trying to put him down, because making profits is exactly what he should be doing. Mac's could use "commodity hardware" stably, but that would cannibalize their own hardware business. Why spend money supporting drivers from other hardware companies? So instead they give preference to their own hardware, which they should because Apple is a hardware company. Its not about stability, its about profits, which is not bad thing, but I'm sick of Apple fanboys thinking that their is some mission behind the company besides profits.

  4. Wired and Macs by CoffeeJedi · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Why is it that almost every other day Wired has an article about Mac-users doing something wacky. I thought maybe it was because alot of Mac users out there were doing really interesting things like the guy who totes all the old Macs around to raves and sets up old school game LANs. But now I wonder... does Wired report every time a Mac user picks his nose? Some of their past stories were a little questionable, but this one is downright stupid. And I love the title "Mac Toters Push Wireless Bounds", wow, look at me, according to Wired I must be pushing the boundaries of my coffee, I'm ADDING SUGAR.
    I love my Mac, and I enjoy reading about other Mac users and their quirks, but come on Wired, keep a sense of reality here. Wired is about CULTURE, not technology. The past articles were always about the personalities using Macs to do unique things, but this one reads like a survey review of WiFi cards out of MacAddict.

    --
    May you be touched by His Noodly Appendage. RAmen.
  5. Re:Crappy airport by pauljlucas · · Score: 5, Interesting
    It is still only 10 base while all the desktop units are gigabit.
    First, 802.11b is 11 Mbit, not 10. Second, an Airport card in a desktop G4 is still 11 Mbit.
    Who still uses 10bit? No artissts I know. They all hook up with 100 base cable.
    OK, so you're really not talking about Gbit, you're talking about 100 Mbit. And wired ethernet, not wireless.
    Apple is supposed to be an innovator not the lazy company that lets its technolgy rot as every other manufactuer comes out with their own system that has much greater speed capibility.
    Apple isn't in the wireless chipset business. They don't make, research, or innovate their own wireless cards any more than they make, research, or innovate hard disks, flat panel displays, modems, or most of the other commodity hardware they use. They buy/license the hardware and technology from other vendors. By the way, Lucent makes the Airport cards for Apple.

    Apple needs to be compatible with other wireless networks where PCs can connect. They can't simply have their own proprietary wireless standard just because it's faster. Apple isn't Microsoft: they can't pull the same kind of crap that MS does with their own proprietary standards.

    Apple needs to put out a wireless Gigabit aiport and cards for the extreame [sic] price they are charging.
    Wireless gigabit doesn't exist. There is, however, 802.11a and 802.11g that offer more bandwidth. Unforunately, the market hasn't decided which of these two incompatible standards to settle on. 802.11g is slower, but backwards compatible with 802.11b. My bet is that Apple will eventually go with that one. But the market penetration of non-802.11b wireless is currently insignificant.

    Extreme price? The Airport card is $99 which is about $40-$50 cheaper than 3rd party 802.11b cards.

    You really have no idea what you're talking about.

    --
    If you reply, do so only to what I explicitly wrote. If I didn't write it, don't assume or infer it.
  6. Re:in other news by porkchop_d_clown · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Considering I have a dead power cord, let me know if you find a source for other cords like that. Apple insisted I'd have to buy a new power supply for my iBook - I wasn't allowed to replace the cord.

    --
    Clear, Dark Skies
  7. boosts reception for incoming network packets by pete-classic · · Score: 3, Interesting
    The EnGenius pumps out 200 milliwatts of radio signal, compared with the 30- to 100-milliwatt range of most 802.11b cards, and similarly boosts reception for incoming network packets.[emphasis mine]


    Huh? Can anyone explain this? Seems flat out wrong to me, but what do I know?

    -Peter
  8. Re:Cheaper, but you lose stability by FyRE666 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Try using the NVidia drivers with a GF2 sometime, it may not crash today, or tomorrow, but eventually... The only time I've seen linux crash has been through driver/hardware problems...

    --
    Code, Hardware, stuff like that.
  9. I just did it, IT WORKS! by overunderunderdone · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I just did this and it WORKS. In my basement office I get ZERO reception, maybe one bars flickers on for a second or two every few days (I use an ethernet cable when I'm down here). After doing this little trick I'm getting three bars and a workable connection (four bars if I adjust my position - I'll have to move my desk)

    From the threads on Ars it looks like you could get even better reception if you could do the same thing to the antenna on the other side. It does seem (just playing around with it right now) that it favors the side with the battery. It seems I get better reception if I rotate the book so that the side with the battery (where I just adjusted the antenna) I get better reception than if the other side (with the DVD drive) is facing the base station.