Section 40. Connect to the Internet Wirelessly


40. Connect to the Internet Wirelessly

SEE ALSO

41 Set Up AirPort to Automatically Reconnect

43 Create and Configure a Location


You're walking down the street, and you see one of those telltale chalk marks on a building that means " open wireless network." Or you wander into a store in the mall that advertises free wireless Internet access, or you're sitting in the airport terminal with nothing to do but wait for your flight. You see other people with laptops typing happily away. How do you, your Mac, and AirPort join in?

1.
Check for AirPort Networks

Click the AirPort Status System menu icon, in the right side of the Mac's menu bar. The resulting menu lists all the public AirPort networks that are within range, displayed by their network names . If no networks are present, a message saying No AirPort networks within range appears instead.

TIP

You can't tell from the menu which networks have the strongest signal, but there's a way to check. Click to open and close the AirPort Status System Menu several times. If some of the networks in the list have a very weak signal, they might disappear and reappear from the list. Try to select a network that stays steadily in the list, or try to discover the location of the base station (if you know who owns it, ask him or her) and move closer to it.

40. Connect to the Internet Wirelessly


NOTE

If the AirPort Status System Menu doesn't show on your Mac, turn it on in the Internet Connect application, found in the Applications folder. Open Internet Connect , click the AirPort toolbar icon, and select the Show AirPort status in menu bar check box.

TIP

You can turn your AirPort card on and off from the AirPort Status System menu. If you turn AirPort off, you can save a fair amount of battery power. It's a good idea to turn off AirPort if you know you're not going to be near a wireless network anytime soon.

2.
Select a Wireless Network

Choose a network to join, and click its name in the AirPort Status System Menu. Mac OS X attempts to connect to the network.

"Private" (or "closed") networks do not appear in the AirPort Status System Menu. You can still connect to them, however. To do this, select Other from the menu; a dialog box appears, asking for the name of the network you want to join, and a password (along with several encryption methods if the network uses WEP encryption) if one is required. The network name is case sensitive, so make sure that you know it exactly.

3.
Enter a Password (If Necessary)

The owner of the wireless network you've chosen might have configured it to require a password. If so, it might be in one of several different forms. Depending on the manufacturer of the base station and whether WEP encryption is enabled, you might have to enter an encrypted string of alphabetical or hexadecimal characters as your password. Other networks might accept a plain-text password. The administrator of the network will be able to tell you both the format and the password; if it's a network in a public area, where you don't know the administrator, then it's a private network that you won't be able to join.

Select the format for the password, and type the password into the field. Click OK to join the network.

Allow 5 to 10 seconds for Mac OS X to apply the network settings and for the network to become usable.

NOTE

Some public networks (such as in airport terminals) allow you to connect without a password to the wireless network, but then ask you for credit card information as soon as you try to go anywhere on the Web. Once you enter this information and purchase some time on the wireless network, your computer will be allowed to access any Internet resource you want.




MAC OS X Tiger in a Snap
Mac OS X Tiger in a Snap
ISBN: 0672327066
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2001
Pages: 212
Authors: Brian Tiemann

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