After a year and a half of struggle I decided to scape the “perfectly good” Linksys Wireless Router, and I have to say, as far as the internet goes, this is the best think I have ever done.  When I say “perfectly good” I mean that nothing is wrong with it other than the fact that them machine itself is flawed.

The Linksys wrt54g is about the ugliest piece of technology that I have ever seen, and was nothing but problems. First it was hard to get it to work at all with Version DSL.  Then getting the bit torrent working both ways.  Then it’s extreme inconsistency, and constant resetting to get a viable wireless signal.  The combination of the Linksys and Version…just didn’t work at all once we moved to Brooklyn, and we ended up canceling our internet service.

We decided to switch to Time Warner, and on top of the Linksys being ugly and unreliable, it knocked out my internet connection completely within 10 minutes of it being hooked up and Time Warner had to come back to the house, it also would only allow one machine to connect to its network, as well as not allowing me to switch the information from the old network that was set up on Verizon even after resetting it.

klk was looking at the Apple website and saw the Airport Express, and it was only $99.  We decided to try it.

The Airport Express has a sleek design (what else would you expect from Apple), and is easy to use.  Plug it into the wall, hook up your internet cable, pop in the cd, and follow the instructions.  To set up a password protected network took just a quick look in the instructions to show you where to go…but then it was all easy steps. Overall this took approximately 5 minutes (where as I had struggled with the Linksys for hours the first time setting it up).

The nice part about the Airport Express (AE) is that it can not only be the originator of the wireless signal but it can also link your stereo, printer, and possibly even an external hard drive to the wireless network.  The AE can even be linked to a second AE to connect a stereo that is in another room to your network, and at the sametime make your wireless network stronger and larger.

I have only been using this configuration for about a week, but I have had minimal problems (just an choppy streaming video last night).  I’ll amend the post if the AE becomes a problem, but right now it is amazing.