USB wifi adapters for Apple, any good?

In preparation for the soon-to-arrive (?) Squeezebox, I need a wifi adapter for my Mac. Current Airport Extreme cards are not compatible with earlier models and the early Airport cards are not longer available.

Ideally I'd need a USB adapter usable on both my Mac and a Windows laptop. I'll be using a Linksys WRT54GS router.

Has anyone any experience of Apple-compatible USB adapters? Are they any good?

I found this list on the Internet

http://home.earthlink.net/~metaphyzx/Wireless.htm

and don't quite understand why, while the offer for PCMCIA and PCI adapters is huge, there are so few USB adapters on the market.

Thanks in advance

 

The USB bus is much slower than pcmcia. Can you not lacate any of these out of date cards on e-bay?

 

Have you got a router or access point you are connecting it all through?

Ad-hoc networks aren't ideal for use with any of the wireless streamers, its far easier to get a wireless access point, plug it into the PC with an ethernet cable and set up an infrastructure network for the SB3 to connect to.

Access points are about £25 so it will work out roughly the same price anyway, I've used a variety of d-link's and they have all worked perfectly without faults.

 

I'm expecting a Linksys router tomorrow to replace the non-wi-fi router I'm currently using, and will connect the Windows PC and iMac by wire. But I thought it would be neat to dispense with the cables. I have ordered wi-fi adapters for neither of my machines yet.

Since I posted I found that my iMac only has early USB connection, which would restrict the datarate anyway, and the same goes for my laptop.

 

I would personally suggest wiring whichever PC up directly to the router, otherwise you are going to have Squeezebox - router - PC all wireless which is going to add to any possible drop-out problems.

USB wifi connectors are quite unreliable too, I have one on my slimserver box to connect to a second network and it often losing the connection, fortunately I have it wired to an access point for the Squeezebox and that hasn't failed once.

Andrew

 

which probably explains at least in part why there are so few on the market.

My iMac has Firewire 400, but I'm not sure they make wifi adapters of that kind.

Thanks again for the advice. BTW I've been ripping all day, took the easy route with pop/rock, keeping classical (the bulk of my collection) for when I'm retired ...

 

I've never seen one myself, but I can't see why they couldn't exist, but they may suffer from the same problems.

You just have to remember that ripping is only done once like this, in future it will just be each time you get a new CD (or in my case twice, as I ripped to MP3 first for my old Netgear and am now re-ripping for the SB2!)

You can always test the software using SoftSqueeze on the PC if you want to get a feel for things

Andrew

 

I don't have much time as I have to get some work done in between CDs and only stop to reload. I have two monitors, which helps. I have the "in" stack on one side and the "out" stack on the other and my work project in between not to get mixed up.

I guess I'll have to wait for the real thing to get a feel for things as you say, hoping it will be plug-and-play (?)

 

Mr Galahad, how old is your iBook?

If it is a white model then keep an eye on ebay for the standard airport card they do exist, and will be a lot less hassle than a USB interface.

 

Yes, thanks Garyi, I heard they come up from time to time, and apparently cost as much as new due to scarcity.

The iMac is about 3/4 years old I guess. It's a PowerPC G4 800 MHz, won't take Airport Extreme.