On wireless networks and the expense of Airport Extreme.

[Touchdown]

Cisco wireless 'N' Linksys router: $70 reg price, sometimes on sale for $60.
Apple Airport Extreme 'N' Base Station: $179.

There are two ways of configuring your computer equipment. The Super Saver way, and the Apple way.

The Super Saver Way! Have friend who insists that Apple wants too effing much money for their router, and convinces me others are just as good. Find a Linksys router at NewEgg for cheap, get Microcenter to price match, set up by running a 3 ft cable over 7 feet from Kitchen into the dining room where both modem and router are hanging in the air, run some arcane install program that cannot find a router, call tech support, get hung up on when you say you have a Mac, told that I need to use the web based set up, which I can't because it can't find my web, hook old network up to get to website, make PDF copies of the pages, disc old network again and run those wires across the room, trip over the wires at least once getting back to the computer. Giving up after 4 hours. Finding out from many others that Linksys is very unreliable in the N range and needs constant power cycling and updates. Any G level devices linked will automatically cause Linksys to drop N speed down to G levels... Next day; unable to find the 6th twist tie in my kitchen to box the whole damn thing back up for an exchange.

The Apple way! Trade it in, wait for geek boy to find his magic security tag remover, go home, plug it in, allow iMac to discover it in 40 seconds, fill out 3 pages of password and network names, and surf the internet... 10 minutes.

You have a Mac? Save your sanity. The Cisco router isn't THAT cheap, especially when you factor in the $60 a month for a prescription of mood stabilizers and a $100 visit to the shrink to get them. Don't even bother with anything else!

[realisticphish]

1. i prefer belkin

i've set up several routers in my various apartments, and i've never had trouble with belkin. My roommates also have windows, so the non-apple router seemed to be the best way to go.

linksys sucks, in my experience

but obviously YMMV. I've dealt with enough windows machines that I don't usually have a problem mixing and matching