Apple Inc (AAPL)

[BlueDjinn]

Re. the Airport Base Station discussion--just wanted to note that my wife and I have had an Airport network set up for several years now without needing an ABS...or any other Wi-Fi access point, for that matter.

For general home wireless needs, you can simply set up any Airport-enabled Mac as an access point without needing any additional hardware; just go to:

System Prefs > Sharing > Internet

Check off the "AirPort" box, click "AirPort Options" to set up the encryption, click "Start" and voila, you have a wireless network up & running.

Granted, the features are limited--you temporarily lose the connection if you have to reboot the Mac, for instance, and some of the more advanced routing/security features are missing--but for basic home wireless use, it does the trick nicely.