The Old Joel on Software Forum: Part 4 (of 5)

Its so easy...

I'm trying to set up a Mac OSX machine to use a wireless network in my home with 128 bit encryption.

It has been 4 hours now, and the damn thing still does not work.

It took me less than 15 minutes to set up a Linux laptop to run on this network. Similar results using WinXP. But here I sit, unable to run a 128 bit WEP key on Mac OSX.

The horror...

Stupid ass shit too. Like calling the MAC address the "Airport ID". Always leaves you wondering... perhaps Jobs has another term for bit like "Apple digit" or some other lameness that once translated allows the POS to actually work.

Ahhh, that feels so much better...

hsoer
Tuesday, April 6, 2004

Sorry to hear you're having so much trouble. I set up mine in maybe 2 minutes on the first day I bought my first Apple ever. You might be over-thinking it.

FWIW, once you have it set up, it's remarkably stable and does a great job jumping on and off of networks.

--Josh

JWA
Tuesday, April 6, 2004

Either you are trying too hard or your AirPort card is broken -- it should never take 4 *hours* to set up an OS X network.

Did you read the manual?

All I think you need to do is configure your access point, turn on the AirPort card, and that should be it. You may need to tell AirPort which network to connect to -- and if there's any extra information needed, OS X should just ask you for it via a dialog.

C Rose
Tuesday, April 6, 2004

Yep - something is amiss.

I opened up my laptop in my house the day I bought it, and it asked me if I wanted to join my home network. One 128 bit key later and it was up and on the net.

Rhys Keepence
Tuesday, April 6, 2004

Do they really call the MAC address the "Airport ID"??

I guess MAC and Mac might be confusing..but airport id?

Mark Hoffman
Tuesday, April 6, 2004

http://www.apple.com/airport/

Interaction Architect
Tuesday, April 6, 2004

I also had no problem setting up my iBook to do 128-bit WEP. I stopped using it because it kept forgetting the key, though, and it was annoying to type it back in.

Sam Livingston-Gray
Tuesday, April 6, 2004

I did RTFM, actually. Reason being that it seems to work fine for 64 bit WEP keys. But every time I type in the "128" bit key, it truncates it to 64. WTF! The manual says 128 should work fine. Weird.

hoser
Tuesday, April 6, 2004

Apples don't have bits, they have pips. You recompile the core not the kernel, though your apps do have skins as in Windows. And they don't have many bugs, but boy, they sure are big juicy ones :)

Stephen Jones
Tuesday, April 6, 2004

> But every time I type in the "128" bit key, it truncates it to 64. WTF!

http://www.google.ca/search?q=apple+airport+64-bit+key&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&meta= suggests http://wifinetnews.com/archives/001264.html

Christopher Wells
Wednesday, April 7, 2004