Q: I’m going to buy my first Mac soon, and I’d like to set up a wireless home network with our current PC included, but I’m not sure whether I need the Airport Extreme or the Airport Express. As far as I can tell, they both do the same thing, but the Express also allows wireless audio streaming from the computer to the HiFi in another room, which is a feature I’d definitely want. But our cable broadband modem is in the dining room where our PC is, while the HiFi is in the living room and the Mac will be going upstairs in my little music home studio I’m putting together.
It seems you need to be able to connect the modem to the Express, and also the hifi to the express with cables. So it seems I’d need two Expresses! Or should I get the new release Apple TV mark 2, which I have read has AirTunes, so I could plug that into the hifi and use it for streaming music from the Mac, while the Express just does the job of wireless router? Would it be more sensible to get the Airport Extreme in that case to do the router job?
Also, do all these bits of kit use the 802.11n wifi spec? I read somewhere that the Extreme is 802.11g? I can’t seem to find clear information on that.
- Syd
A: Basically, here’s the rundown on what you need to know about Apple’s three wireless networking/media devices:
| Airport Extreme / Time Capsule | - Supports 802.11n/g/b
- Acts as a wireless Internet router/firewall
- One wired Ethernet port for Internet connection (cable modem or DSL modem)
- Three wired Ethernet ports for local connections
- USB port to share a hard drive or a printer
(Hard drive not supported for use with Leopard’s Time Machine feature) - No AirTunes support
- Time Capsule version includes a 500GB/1TB hard drive built-in
(for use with Leopard’s “Time Machine” feature)
|
Airport Express | - Supports 802.11g/b ONLY
- Acts as a wireless Internet router/firewall
- Can act as a wireless client device or wireless range extender
- Only one Ethernet port—if being used as a router all devices must be wireless
- Ethernet port can be used to connect wired devices into the wireless network or to share an Internet connection
- Can share a USB printer
- Digital optical or electrical connection for AirTunes support
- Remote control when streaming from AirTunes requires a separate third-party accessory
| Apple TV 2.0 | - Supports 802.11n/g/b
- Acts only as a wireless client
- Does not share disks or printers
- Digital optical or electrical connection for AirTunes support
- Supports remote control of iTunes library when streaming via AirTunes
- Acts as an iTunes media center as well—like an iPod for your home entertainment system
|
The bottom line, however, is that unless your audio equipment and cable modem are in the same room, you’re going to need two units. Further, keep in mind that when used as an Internet router, the Airport Express doesn’t offer anywhere to plug a wired connection, so unless all of your gear is wireless, that’s not a particularly viable option unless you already have a standalone Internet DSL/cable router, in which case the Airport Express can simply work as an access point to provide WiFi and your existing router can provide the Internet connectivity.
The optimal combination, if 802.11n performance is important and money isn’t the primary concern, would be to get the Airport Extreme for the core router (connected to the cable modem), and an Apple TV 2.0 for the living room as an Airtunes station connected to the HiFi (and of course a device to listen to and watch video content onto directly). This would provide full 802.11n performance throughout the house, and of course you would also gain the additional benefits of the Apple TV’s media capabilities.
A simpler solution, if the Apple TV is a bit more than you need, would be the Airport Extreme as a base station and Internet router, with an Airport Express in the living room. The only downside to this configuration is that the 802.11g Airport Express will drag down the performance of the 802.11n network. This may not be a concern if your client devices are only 802.11g anyway, or if you’re not doing much more than surfing the Internet (since even 802.11g speeds are generally faster than the fastest broadband connection). The Airport Express also offers the ability to plug a piece of equipment into the Ethernet port and have it connected to the rest of the network wirelessly, and can also share a printer via its USB port—both features that the Apple TV does not provide.
Lastly, a pair of Airport Express units could do the job, but it’s important to keep in mind that you would have only 802.11g access at this point, and the number of wired connections may be a problem unless you already have another Internet router on your cable modem connection that you could keep using.
Q: I would like to be able to play random selections from a playlist. I have categorized my music into playlists and they are quite large, but I can only seem to get the iPod to play the playlist in order (or I can move to a different track manually). Am I missing something easy?
- Ian
A: The solution is to turn on the “Shuffle” feature on the iPod. This may be in different places depending upon the model of iPod that you are using. On the traditional iPod models, the Shuffle option can be found under the Settings menu, and can be set to Off, Albums, or Songs. The newer 2007 iPod classic and iPod nano (video) also provide the ability to toggle the shuffle option on and off from the “Now Playing” screen—simply press the center “Select” button several times until you see the shuffle options appear, and then use the click wheel to select the appropriate one.
On the iPod touch (and iPhone), the shuffle option is set when playing back a set of tracks simply by tapping on the “Now Playing” screen and tapping the shuffle icon that appears at the top-right, beside the progress indicator.
Q: I have created a playlist in order to listen to a selection of podcasts but unfortunately only one podcast plays and then I have to manually select the next one to play. I have checked some iLounge archives regarding this problem and the suggested solution of ensuring tracks are “checked” doesn’t seem to apply in my case as all are already checked. Is there any difference because they are podcasts?
- Anonymous
A: The likely cause of this problem is that you have your iPod set to enable “Shuffle” mode, and your podcasts are marked as “Skip when Shuffling” (which is the default setting for new podcasts).
When shuffling playback, either from the main “Shuffle Songs” menu option, or from within a playlist, those tracks marked as “Skip when Shuffling” will not be played. If all of the tracks in an entire playlist are marked to be skipped, then only the first selected track is played, and the playlist will then end.
The solution is to either disable “Shuffle” on the iPod (under Settings, Shuffle) when playing podcasts, or to mark the podcasts themselves to not be skipped when shuffling. This latter option can be found by selecting a track in iTunes, and choosing File, Get Info. The track properties should appear, and on the “Options” tab, simply UNcheck the box marked “Skip when Shuffling” and save the track.
This can also be applied to multiple tracks at once by selecting several tracks before choosing the Get Info option.
Unfortunately, these changes will only apply to existing podcast episodes. New episodes that are downloaded will still have the “Skip when Shuffling” setting enabled by default.
Q: Is there a method for the iPod touch to recognize a Firewire sync cable? The new iPod touch does not seem to work with an older Firewire sync cable, thus inhibiting syncing on older iMacs.
- Gary
A: Unfortunately, no. Firewire synchronization was discontinued with the fifth-generation iPod models in 2005, and it does not appear to be coming back. Most iPod models will still charge over Firewire, but syncing is definitely not an option.
For most users, the recommended solution is to simply purchase a USB 2.0 card, which operates for all intents and purposes at more or less the same speed as Firewire. Of course, this is not always an option for systems like the iMac. Unfortunately, the significant differences between the Firewire and USB standards coupled with the plethora of very inexpensive USB 2.0 adapter cards available means that there are no cost-effective USB-to-Firewire adapters available either.
Q: I got an iPod classic 80 GB as a gift. It’s set to Mac but I want it to Windows WITHOUT having to lose the 5 GB worth of music that were part of the gift. I don’t have a Mac, so is there a way that I can do this from Windows? Can I store the music with different software than iTunes that’s compatible with both Mac and Windows, than reset the iPod to Windows and download the music again or is there an easier way?
- Peter
A: Traditional iPod models appear simply as an external hard disk to the computer, and are either formatted for Windows (FAT32) or Mac (HFS+), depending upon which system they were set up on. While a Mac can read a Windows-formatted disk (and therefore by extension, a Windows-formatted iPod), the reverse is not automatically true—Windows has no idea what to do with an HFS+ formatted drive.
The normal way of converting an iPod from Mac use over to Windows is to perform a “Restore” on it, erasing everything on it and reformatting it for the Windows operating system. However, if you want to recover data from the iPod before doing this, it will be necessary to either find a Mac OS X computer to recover the data on, or purchase a commercial utility for Windows such as MacDrive (http://www.mediafour.com, $50, free trial available), which will allow Windows to read any Mac-formatted disk. Note that the MacDrive trial is apparently full-functional for five days, so the trial version may actually be all you need for one-time recovery of an iPod’s content, as long as you use it within five days after installing it.
Q: My Windows machine where my library and music folders currently reside was recently infected by a virus that has thus far resisted all efforts at eradication thus far. I have created a new partition on my harddrive, installed a fresh copy of the OS and migrated data files that I scanned or did not suspect. The problem, though, is that I now want to move the old iTunes library and music folder to an external drive, and then completely wipe the infected partition, but I question the security/advisability of moving the iTunes files. What is the likliehood of MP3 and other music iTunes files becoming infected/corrupted?
- Greg
A: For the most part, digital media files cannot carry computer viruses, although they can certainly be corrupted by a virus, rendering them unusable.
Moving your iTunes library files, including the iTunes library database and your MP3 and other media files to the new partition will not propagate the virus to the new partition, but the files themselves may have already been damaged. This is certainly something that could be sorted out later, however, as these damaged files will not affect anything on the new partition, and may only be identified as you actually listen to them, although some may also show invalid tag information when viewing the track properties in iTunes.
In some rare cases, corrupted MP3 files can also cause your iPod to freeze up or reset when it tries to play them. This will not generally damage your iPod, and if this problem is encountered, simply reset the iPod and remove the damaged file.
Next: The Complete Guide to iTunes Movie Rentals, Part 1 (Updated)
Previous: All Things iPod classic
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