05-05-2013, 07:41 PM
Are you using your Mini as a mobile device, and need it to roam around the house picking up WiFi?
A good rule of thumb: if a computer is mobile, connect wirelessly. If it's stationary, plug it in!
I realize a lot of people, since the advent of WiFi, use wireless connectivity exclusively, having concluded wired connections are a thing of the past. Using WiFi not just as their primary home access to the internet, but as their only connection to the internet. Often it's because access to wired connection isn't nearby, it isn't practical, or possible, for the desired location of the fixed-location computer. Few have the option of wiring a home with high-speed network ports in every room. I understand there are often barriers, good reasons this isn't an option.
It's unfortunate to depend exclusively on wireless, even for fixed-location desktop systems. Unless there's absolutely no other option. Which I assume is the case.
I understand I'm in the minority, but it's a major priority for me, a deal breaker. I'd get on my hands and knees, claw through drywall with my bare hands, and manually rewire the house. Or string hundreds of feet of ethernet cable through hallways, before I'd have a stationary desktop computer depending on wireless signals as its only method of access.
Not that my wife thinks this is a good idea, of course! Or that my priorities are the same as other people. But this is my habit, my insistence on solid reliable wired high-speed connectivity, over the just okay semi-reliable variable performance of even the most robust newest-generation WiFi.
That said, I like being able to fall back on WiFi, for various reasons. I'd just hate to have to depend on WiFi 100% of the time, for all internet access.
UPDATE: another option not mentioned is the possibility of using an affordable Airport Express (around $85 refurb, older models on eBay for half that) as a secondary, complementary Base Station, to pick up and amplify a signal in different part of the house. And/or for AirTunes, or wireless printing. Those little gadgets are really useful, not uncommon for a home to have one or two of them in different parts of the house. Something to consider.
A buddy of mine just solved a problem for his father-in-law, in Chicago, this way. Their family has a really long apartment, with a lot of barriers and wireless traffic, and has never had good results with just their main Base Station. Last Christmas he set them up with a pair of brand new Airport Expresses, and it immediately solved their connection problems. And made it easy for them (being elderly and non-technical) to use the Apple Utility, from an iPad or iPhone, to monitor the connection. And as a bonus, they use the other features, too.
A good rule of thumb: if a computer is mobile, connect wirelessly. If it's stationary, plug it in!
I realize a lot of people, since the advent of WiFi, use wireless connectivity exclusively, having concluded wired connections are a thing of the past. Using WiFi not just as their primary home access to the internet, but as their only connection to the internet. Often it's because access to wired connection isn't nearby, it isn't practical, or possible, for the desired location of the fixed-location computer. Few have the option of wiring a home with high-speed network ports in every room. I understand there are often barriers, good reasons this isn't an option.
It's unfortunate to depend exclusively on wireless, even for fixed-location desktop systems. Unless there's absolutely no other option. Which I assume is the case.
I understand I'm in the minority, but it's a major priority for me, a deal breaker. I'd get on my hands and knees, claw through drywall with my bare hands, and manually rewire the house. Or string hundreds of feet of ethernet cable through hallways, before I'd have a stationary desktop computer depending on wireless signals as its only method of access.
Not that my wife thinks this is a good idea, of course! Or that my priorities are the same as other people. But this is my habit, my insistence on solid reliable wired high-speed connectivity, over the just okay semi-reliable variable performance of even the most robust newest-generation WiFi.
That said, I like being able to fall back on WiFi, for various reasons. I'd just hate to have to depend on WiFi 100% of the time, for all internet access.
UPDATE: another option not mentioned is the possibility of using an affordable Airport Express (around $85 refurb, older models on eBay for half that) as a secondary, complementary Base Station, to pick up and amplify a signal in different part of the house. And/or for AirTunes, or wireless printing. Those little gadgets are really useful, not uncommon for a home to have one or two of them in different parts of the house. Something to consider.
A buddy of mine just solved a problem for his father-in-law, in Chicago, this way. Their family has a really long apartment, with a lot of barriers and wireless traffic, and has never had good results with just their main Base Station. Last Christmas he set them up with a pair of brand new Airport Expresses, and it immediately solved their connection problems. And made it easy for them (being elderly and non-technical) to use the Apple Utility, from an iPad or iPhone, to monitor the connection. And as a bonus, they use the other features, too.