Extreme Distress Dismissed by AirPort Express
Two questions from my pal P.K., who’s clearly trying to win Brownie® points from his boss —
My boss has a two story house. He has an AirPort upstairs that allows his Mac and his work PC to print wirelessly. However, the range is not good enough to allow him to print from downstairs. Is it possible to set up another wireless airport downstairs that can relay to the upstairs unit? What do I need to buy to make this work?
The short answer is yes, you can do this using an AirPort Express (the cheaper version of the AirPort Base Station; other than its limitation to 10 simultaneous wireless users it’s nearly as full-featured as the base station) in “bridge” mode. The Express can extend the range of a WDS (Wireless Distribution System) network hosted by an AirPort Extreme Base Station or another AirPort Express. Just plug the AirPort Express into a power receptacle on the first floor to improve the signal downstairs. You can learn more at Apple’s AirPort Express FAQ.
The longer answer has to do with figuring out why the range of his existing AirPort is so limited. Is it really more than 150 feet from his downstairs to his upstairs? I lived in a three-story townhouse that presented no problem to the range of my AirPort Express. While the extra Express will certainly solve his problem, your boss may want to try manually switching to another WiFi channel that may be prone to less interference, especially if he lives in a neighborhood with a lot of WiFi networks. Here’s a Google search with links to a number of helpful sites about improving your WiFi range.
Please Delete Me, Let Me Go …
On to P.K.’s next question:
On his iPhone my boss would like to be able to delete call logs individually. It appears that you can only clear the entire page [all calls in your Call History], but not delete individual calls.
You can’t do this natively on the iPhone but luckily lots of third parties have come to the rescue. Here’s the Google search I used to find them. Or, if you have a Mac, you can use the incredibly useful software I use, PhoneView. Only $19.95 (and a free demo to try before buying), and it allows you desktop access to almost everything on your iPhone (including archiving your Visual Voicemail), not just your phone logs. All without jailbreaking, which many of the other apps that do what your boss wants will force you to do.
PhoneView: A simple way to access everything on your iPhone
Have a question about your iPhone or Mac? Try stumping me at carlos (at) cosmicsitcom (dot) com.
