TiBook Wi-Fi Range Hack: New Card

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."

Comments

Re:Cheaper, but you lose stability

[asv108]

Linux, like any monolithic kernel, gives complete privilege to drivers (including those for wireless networking devices), allowing them to crash the system at will. I suggest you invest in some cough drops.

Well if that were the case, why is Linux so damn stable? I have 2 systems running beta and expirmental wireless and firewire drivers that have never crashed. In my experience with Linux, drivers are sometimes a pain in the ass to get working, but once they are working they don't crash.

Re:Cheaper, but you lose stability

[dattaway]

Your experience may vary. I have been using nvidia's drivers for my g2 toshiba satellite for over a year now. My laptop is always on, rarely powered down, and has yet to crash an X session.

Re:Apple will lose profits not stability

[shepd]

>What part of FireWire, IDE, SDRAM, USB, AGP, PCI is proprietary to Apple?

I don't know.

Maybe the parts that put people off years ago, like:

5v serial ports, 5v DIMMs, NuBus, localtalk, motoroized eject disk drives, making people call FireWire 1001 different names, and other fun little stupidities?

Or maybe today's problems, like not using an ATX case, their software, or 100% of apple mainboards?