Airport

Airport Planning & Management
$34.99
The book is in outstanding shape, looks new. The book is just what I was looking for.

Apple Time Capsule MB276LL/A (AirPort Extreme Plus 500 GB Storage)
$299.00
Don't let the Gb rating fool you. In reality, its actual throughput is only at 100TX speed or slower.

Now, the down and dirty fact: If the drive inside drops dead during the warranty period, your data is out of luck if you want to claim warranty--Apple does not offer any type of data-recovery service, nor would they transplant your drive into another unit if components other than the hard drive dropped dead.

The inside of the Time Capsule is like a convection oven. All the components get baked. Extreme temperatures--especially heat--are the biggest enemies of electronic components. No exception here.

Spending $100 on an old PowerMac G4 with Gb ethernet is a much better solution. How to do it? Pop in a PCI-to-SATA card and four 1.5TB drives, install OS 10.4.11. What's the total cost?

1.5TB x 4 = $600
1.5TB x 2 = $300
Mac = $100
PCI-to-SATA card (bootable) = $80

Expandable? Yes.
Removable drive? Yes.
True GB ethernet? Of course.
Data recovery? Yes.

Airport
$6.99
I read this book last Friday in my daughter's preschool class (2-3 year olds). Well, they are generally a rowdy bunch, but you could have heard a pin drop. They were entranced...the plotline really had them on the edge of their seats...you know, people go to the airport, they line up, they buckle seat belts. Good times, people, good times. Anyway, the books was a hit. Twenty toddlers can't all be wrong...

Apple Airport Express
$99.99
I thought I scored with this unit. I wanted to have my xbox connected via wireless along with my stereo. It's same price as the new wireless n attachment for the xbox so it seemed like a no brainer. The unit looks like it should be able to accept a signal from the router and send it out from the ethernet cable. Wrong. I called apple and they said the ethernet cable can only be directed inward. What a bummer. It would have been sweet to tie this into my current wireless network and get my xbox and stereo working. Also, the signal wasn't quite as good as a linksys160n. I was a little surprised by this. My xbox was only showing 2 bars. Might have been a user error, but I worked on it for a while and couldn't get it any better. So close, yet so far. If they can ever get it to accept a feed, it's a home run.