October 4, 2007

October 4, 2007
I continued experiments to get my network set up. I want to get the airport extreme connected to earthlink DSL so I can get an internet connection via the airport extreme.

I have no computers connected to the gateway/charter cable switch. I do want to be able to look at that connections and of course have access to the wassons.com home page. Of course I could get to that via the internet if the Charter cable is functioning. Anyway I pulled the Dell Inspiron laptop out the the closet. It is running linux and connected immediately to the internet when I connected it by ethernet to the switch to the Charter cable modem. I was testing it out by filling out a Practical Press web form when charter went down and interupted my testing.

The next step was to connect the airport extreme to the switch for the Earthlink DSL modem. I then ran Airport Setup Assistant from the G4 but was not able to get to the internet.

I then plugged the HP 4600 printer into the earthlink DSL switch. With this connection I was able to print out this document. I was not able to print out a document with the MacBook.

I then plugged the HP 2200 printer into the earthlink DSL switch. With this connection I was unable to print out this document. I was also unable to print a document from the MacBook.

I plugged the HP 2200 printer into the ethernet port on the airport extreme. With this connection I was unable to print this document. I was also unable to print a document from the MacBook.

I plugged the HP 4600 printer into the ethernet port on the airport extreme. With this connection I could print this document. This is kind of encouraging as I could print out Adobe Photoshop CS2 documents from the G4. I could not print out a document from the MacBook.

Printing summary: I can print this document (G4) when the HP 4600 color laser jet printer is connected to the DSL switch or to the ethernet port on the airport extreme.

I could not print a document from the MacBook to either the DSL switch or to the ethernet port on airport extreme.

So the G4 can print to the HP 4600 and the MacBook can print to the HP 3330 printer connected to a USB port.

I am going to read the documentation for the airport extreme (Airport Extreme Base Station Setup Guide and Designing Airport Extreme Networks) to see if there is something else I can do to get the airport extreme on the internet through the DSL modem.

I called the Earthlink support number but they were unable to get the airport extreme configured to work with the earthlink DSL connection. The earthlink tech said my modem is set to DHCP, the airport is set to PPOE, and the Mac G4 is set to DHCP (address of the G4 is 192.168.1.3). He gave me the telephone number for apple tech support 800-767-2775.

This posting was not created on my iPhone but was created with BBBEdit on the G4.