I’m outfitting the pool house here as an office. While it’s fully electrified, there’s no easy way to run cat-5 cable out there (no room left in the underground electrical conduit). I had planned to simply use my laptop (iBook) with its old-fashioned Airport card to connect to the wireless router in the main house. But my iBook just broke. So here’s what I’ve got now:
cable modem
wifi router
regular router
airport card
iMac G3 (graphite, slot-loading)
My iMac is supposed to be airport-card-ready … but from what I see online, I need some sort of adapter for the card. Am I better off just buying that, or is there some other solution I’m not seeing? Could I get another wifi router and connect that to my existing wifi network and then connect to the iMac via ethernet cable, etc.?
It’s a code violation and a big fat safety hazard to you and your equipment to run a network cable in the same conduit as power wiring, so it was a good thing there’s no space.
If the wifi reaches to the pool house, you can get a wireless access point that gives you an ethernet jack to plug a single computer, or a hub, into. Some APs have routers/hubs built in and give you four or five jacks. Depending on signal strength, you may need external directional antennas at the pool house AP and at the wifi router.
If the wifi doesn’t reach, you can do powerline ethernet - a pair of devices plug into a 110 volt circuit and use the installed power wiring to span the distance. Ideally, the devices are onthe same circuit, but can usually work on different circuits, so long as they’re on the same electrical “side” of the circuit breaker panel’s bus.
OK, took a visit to my local computer retailer today to look at options. Will this work:
Outside Cable Line
|
Cable Modem
|
wireless router — VOIP box
wireless access point
|
router — Ethernet printer
|
iMac
(where “=” means wireless connection and “|” and “—” mean wired connections)
I was thinking of getting something like this WAP.