[Hidden-tech] Looking for internet technician

[Jonathan Dill]

There are a few other options that might be worth considering, but are 
limited to around 10-14 Mb/s--for sharing an internet connection, that 
is probably adequate given the internet connection is going to be a much 
smaller bottleneck than the device, but if you are doing streaming media 
or heavy duty filesharing between the machines, that might not cut it.

Wall-Plugged ethernet bridge eg. Netgear XE102, only up to 14 Mb/s 
though (I am definitely not endorsing Netgear per se, just knew that 
they make such a device, there are probably others):

http://www.netgear.com/products/details/XE102.php

If the two end points are on different branch circuits and/or different 
phases, I think that will probably be an issue since the signal might 
not travel well through the electrical panel--something I have 
encountered with X10 protocol "home automation" equipment.

Wall-plugged wireless range extender--this one is 54 Mb/s to the box, 
but I'm not convinced it really does 54 Mb/s over the powerline itself:

http://www.netgear.com/products/details/WGX102.php

If your house has existing coax that is not used, you can get 10 Mb/s 
ethernet "baluns" (these actually run 10baseT and not 10base2 aka 
Thinnet even though it is a coax media):

http://www.etslan.com/ethernet.php

With some wireless access points, it is possible to disconnect the 
antenna and hook up an "antenna extension cable" and put the antenna on 
the end of that, typically 10' or 30'.  I don't know if the AirPort has 
that capability.  Why would you want to do that vs. just running CAT5 
for example?  It might be an easier cable run to stick an antenna 
somewhere vs. trying to get CAT5 to a good location for a jack.

Lastly, another tool that might be useful for the "bag of tricks" is a 
wireless bridge--this acts as a client to connect to a wireless access 
point.  For example, you could put the "bridge" within range of the 
airport, but somewhere that you could make an easy CAT5 cable run to 
another floor of the house.  I have one of these at home that I use on 
my laptop--more expensive than a wireless ethernet card, but it's 
external, so you don't have any driver issues--I got mine on sale at 
Compusa for about $80 vs. the MSRP of $110.  FWIW this appears to be an 
embedded Linux device :)

http://catalog.belkin.com/IWCatProductPage.process?Merchant_Id=&Product_Id=154416

Jonathan