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Networking (Apple) Businesses Apple Hardware

Apple Releases Preview of IP over FireWire 116

Posted by pudge from the now-i-really-need-to-remember-the-difference-between-MB-and-Mb dept.
A user writes, "Apple has finally released IP over FireWire drivers for Mac OS X. It is now possible to connect two or more Macs together with FireWire cables and if needed, FireWire hubs."
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Apple Releases Preview of IP over FireWire More

Apple Releases Preview of IP over FireWire

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  • IP over FireWire (Score:5, Funny)

    by tps12 ( 105590 ) on Wednesday December 04, 2002 @11:27AM (#4810752) Homepage Journal
    Jeez, the MPAA was already upset about IP over Ethernet. This'll drive them up the wall.

  • cluster me crazy (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 04, 2002 @11:30AM (#4810775)
    Does firewire offer any advantages over gigabit ethernet for building compute clusters?
    • Not quite as fast, but cheaper for small networks. Plus, legacy iMacs/iBooks don't have any way to add GigE. Plus, could be a nice step toward cheap SAN and sharable scanners, etc.

    • Re:cluster me crazy (Score:5, Interesting)

      by kuwan ( 443684 ) on Wednesday December 04, 2002 @12:22PM (#4811142) Homepage
      Well, a Firewire network would be a lot cheaper. For a gigabit ethernet network you'd have to get a gigabit switch which are pretty expensive (at least $800-$900). For a Firewire netword you wouldn't even need a hub as computers can be daisy-chained together (assuming they have at least two Firewire ports). But if you do need a Firewire hub, they're pretty cheap compared to a gigabit hub/switch.

      Also, many Macs can't be upgraded to gigabit ethernet. iMacs, iBooks, older PowerBooks, and older PowerMac don't have gigabit ethernet, but many of them do have Firewire. So depending on what you have, building a Firewire network is much more attractive than trying to build a gigabit ethernet network.

      • Re:cluster me crazy (Score:1, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Asante sells decent Mac-compatible gigabit NICs for older Macs or for a second NIC in a newer Mac.

        The advantage Firewire has is not in networking computers, but in networking peripherals. You can plug a Firewire printer(try finding one, though), a Firewire camera, a Firewire RAID, a Firewire-administrable server or appliance, and a Firewire Zip drive, then you can take that whole set of peripherals and plug the whole mess into a Firewire hub with a workgroup or two on it. All computers in those workgroups will be able to treat all of those peripherals as if they were plugged in locally.

        You could print, capture pics, scan photos, save files, and login to and reconfigure a server through a serial connection(Firewire is just a really fast serial interface) all at the same time, and at the same time as all the other people in your workgroup are using the same peripherals. And no toggle switches required! Woohoo!

        Add to this the convenience of file transfers at 4x the speed of 100Mbps Ethernet, without all the hassle of setting network options, and you have a Mac workgroup admin's wildest wet dream(except without the hot blonde chicks).
        • I believe that this is the only reason for it that makes sense. Presumably it would allow some manufacturers, such as HP, to leverage a lot of their existing network code to better serve the Macintosh market. Whether that happens, of course, is a whole other kettle of fish. While printing has improved dramatically, it still is rather lacking.

          Overall though I see this as part of Apple's strategy for true fast plug and play peripherals. Rendezvous is an other part of it. Actual real world applications aren't really available. So we'll see how it all pans out. Apple's had exciting technology before that rarely got used. (OpenDoc, QuickdrawGX, etc.) Given that the Mac is still a small market I'm not sure most peripheral makers will actually end up using all this stuff. Call me skeptical, but I think we need some nice 3rd party companies to offer this sort of thing.

          Anyone remember those old laser printers that plugged into the SCSI port? Of course I never thought they worked that well, but I suspect this is setting up a networked version of that. However Apple really needs to offer the peripherals themselves if they want to kickstart the market. Unfortunately the afore mentioned problems of unimplemented cool technology applies to Apple as much as anyone. Take a look at Appleworks and how few OSX features it uses.

      • I don't necessarily believe that a Firewire network would be a lot cheaper. I can pick up the latest and greatest, standardized CAT 6 UTP cable and connectors for pretty cheap. If you've ever been in a large computer room, you know that patch cord/cable routing is huge, and I have yet to see a firewire patch panel. Also, the max length for copper cable is over 300 feet, I doubt that's the case for firewire, though I admit to not knowing. For large applications such as clustering, I think Gig-E is going to be the solution for anything serious. However, if you're clustering 3 computers, go for it!
        • The FW topology is limited to 64 devices...

          I don't think you're going to see large FW LANs ;)

          BUT then again, this is IP... just have one machinbe with two fw cards too bridge the subnets ;)

          • Holy jedi knight, i bow before you in your holy wisdom, and ask when the move to sydney will be complete so i can get me 3ivx pro ;-)
          • unless you intend to have 63 seperete devices connected to that comp in addition to the next daisy chained computer this wont be an issue as additional comps will not be treated as devices on the chain EXCEPT for those directly connected
      • I personally cringe at the thought of how much a single 50' Firewire cable would cost for small offices. HINT: a *LOT* more than CAT5e/6. I'd wager pricing on par with Fiber -- daisy chained, no less -- so if a machine gets pulled or powered off, poof goes that link.

        Workgroups in the same room, clusters or labs? Groovy... but once you start talking about multiple rooms or more than 4 or 5 machines, I have the feeling that it's gonna be REALLY cost prohibitive.

        That's just not what the tech is designed for, methinks. I'm thinking that clustering is really what this is all about.

        And now I'm drooling over a few Xserves or desktops clustered via Firewire 2 as a rendering farm.
    • does anyone know about network latency with Firewire IP? I have been told that 1000 & 100 MB ethernet have similar latency and that it much to high (slow) for some clustered tasks... leading people to use other networking hardware for clusters. Could firewire be a good low latency alternative?
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Windows... (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Is it possible to connect macs with windows machines using this?
    • I played around with networking my PowerBook G4 to my Windoze box and was unable to get file sharing over FireWire to work. Maybe I'm not trying hard enough or perhaps it's because this is a preview release...

      • I can confirm the following configuration:

        New iMac 17" connecting to WinXP 100mb/FireWire Bridge w/ generic firewire (TI compat) card.

        Seems pretty seemless to me.

    • Why not? This is just TCP/IP, right? as long as the hardware will connect why wouldn't it treat it like any other connection using IP?
      • the problem is...
        Sometimes MS likes to "embrace and extend" protocols so it's close enough to the real thing, but only works on their own stuff.
        • true but this is TCP/IP we're talking about. If a windows box can telnet or ftp to a mac server on the real internet, it should work with IP over firewire the same way, no?
          • If a windows box can telnet or ftp to a mac server on the real internet, it should work with IP over firewire the same way, no?

            That's the problem. the keyword there is should .You never know with them if it will play nice with other Operating Systems or not. If they followed Open Standard protocols, it will work if everything is set up correctly.
    • I've noticed since I installed Windows XP I have a "1394 Connection" listed under Network Connections. OS X can share files to Windows using Samba, so I think that covers it!

  • FireWire Target Disk Mode (Score:3, Interesting)

    by justzisguy ( 573704 ) on Wednesday December 04, 2002 @11:53AM (#4810936)
    I've been using FireWire Target Disk Mode for transferring large files from my PowerBook G4 (original release, didn't include Gigabit Ethernet) to my desktop system. Finally I no l longer have to shut down the machine to sync them up, now if only they get AppleTalk working...

    • Re:FireWire Target Disk Mode (Score:4, Insightful)

      by tim1724 ( 28482 ) on Wednesday December 04, 2002 @01:23PM (#4811702) Homepage Journal
      Why would you want and/or need AppleTalk?

      AFP (Apple Filing Protocol, what the marketing people call "AppleShare") works great over TCP.

      Given Jaguar's support for Rendevous and AFP over TCP, what does AppleTalk get you? AppleTalk's only place in today's world is for compatibility with legacy machines, but that doesn't apply here, as Apple only supplies this software for Jaguar.
      • AppleTalk is easier to discover on a network.
        • The whole point of Rendevouz (a combination of automatic link-local address assignment, multicast DNS, and service discovery) is to provide all the ease of use of AppleTalk on an IP network.

          When you connect two machines together with FireWire and have IP over FireWire enabled, they will assign themselves link-local IP addresses, exchange name information via multicast DNS, and advertise their services (such as file or printer sharing) to each other.

          The machines will automatically appear in the Finder's "Connect to Server" window, the same way they would if they were running AppleTalk. Shared printers will automatically appear in the Print Center and in print dialogs.

          AppleTalk is not any easier than that!
    • now if only they get AppleTalk working...

      Rendezvous [apple.com] should handle most of what Phase I AppleTalk provided.
    • ...now if only they get AppleTalk working...
      I recently tried a simple GigE-to-100BaseT network between my first-gen G4 and my G/F's second-gen. Couldn't get Appletalk working either, then today I noticed that Appletalk was disabled under the "Directory Access" utility... Give that a whirl (I haven't bothered to lug her machine back in here and try it out yet).

  • It's at least another option (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Spencerian ( 465343 ) on Wednesday December 04, 2002 @12:08PM (#4811035) Homepage Journal
    Currently you can connect most Macs together by a crossover Ethernet cable for networking. Alternatively, if you just need to move something between two boxes, you can use a FireWire cable and mount another hard drive with Target Disk Mode (which someone noted earlier).

    So IP over FireWire adds to the diversity. Today, you don't even need a crossover cable with the Gigabit Ethernet ports on most Macs. Just use a regular CAT5 to connect them.

    Having this option, from my techie POV, allows me to connect to another Mac should the user's Ethernet port go cranky. I'd have to think a little more for additional applications, but perhaps a cheap, high speed FireWire LAN for gaming or small home networks would be useful. I would think you can share a cable modem connection in this manner, too. I better RTFdocs.

    • Crossover cable (Score:3, Interesting)

      by SwissMike ( 592866 )
      Actually you can use normal cat5 cable to connect any modern Mac and dont have to use a crossover cable. Works for example on my iBook 500 which doesnt have Gigabit Ethernet... It even works when i connect my iBook to a PC! Thats one of the little nice details which make Macs attracting more on more of my computer science student fellows...

      • Re:Crossover cable (Score:3, Informative)

        by Spencerian ( 465343 )
        I oversimplified, you're right.

        This link from Apple's support page tells which Macs do and do not need a crossover cable today. [apple.com]
      • Actually, I found it to be quite annoying, especially if you don't know about it. I was trying to set up a consumer gateway router for a friend with DSL who had one of the models that supports that. He had his DSL modem connected to his computer with a pass-through cable, but when I tried to connect the same cable from the DSL modem to the WAN port of the router, the WAN link light wouldn't light up. After several frustrating calls to Verizon support (they supplied the modem), I, out of desperation, used a crossover cable to connect the DSL modem and router even though it shouldn't do anything. But lo and behold, it works. Having the Mac be able to use either type of cable led me to jump to incorrect conclusions, and wasted several hours of my time.
        • I have several computers intergrated into my house (meaning behind furniture, under stuff, in closets,etc). I recently spent about an hour moving crap around to free up a cable for my G4, only to find I could have just used the crossover cable in plain view.Damn.

        • No offense intended, but you can't blame this on Apple in any way. It's your fault for not knowing you need a Crossover Cable to go from a Cable/DSL modem to a router. If you're going from a Cable/DSL modem to a hub you can use a Patch cable, but IIRC any time you're going to a device that has its own IP (router, a single computer, etc) you need a crossover. RTFM for the modem--I bet it said you needed one...mine did.
          • Unless its a modern mac ;)

            Modern macs just don't care
          • No offense intended, but you can't blame this on Apple in any way. It's your fault for not knowing you need a Crossover Cable to go from a Cable/DSL modem to a router. If you're going from a Cable/DSL modem to a hub you can use a Patch cable, but IIRC any time you're going to a device that has its own IP (router, a single computer, etc) you need a crossover. RTFM for the modem--I bet it said you needed one...mine did.

            First of all, only select few Cable/DSL modems require a crossover cable to connect to anything. Most just require a patch cable like a normal ethernet device. It has nothing to do with whether or not the device has its own IP, but rather how the physical port is wired.

            Second, I didn't have the manual, I was at my friends house, so I couldn't RTFM.

            Third, it wasn't the requirement of a crossover that confused me, it was the fact that the DSL modem was working perfectly with a regular patch cable hooked to the computer that threw me. Since I hadn't known about this Auto-MDI-X stuff that Apple is doing, I thought that there is no way it could require a crossover, since it obviously required a patch.

  • On XP it works nicely. (Score:4, Informative)

    by kmellis ( 442405 ) <kmellis@io.com> on Wednesday December 04, 2002 @12:11PM (#4811055) Homepage
    I've been using IP on 1394 from my desktop box to my Sony laptop. I just bridge my ethernet and firewire NICs on my desktop PC, and the Sony has an Internet connection over Firewire (which they call "i.Link"). It works great. Theoretically, I should be seeing four times the bandwidth on the 1394 link than I see with 100 Ethernet, but in reality it's not that big of a difference. As people are saying about gig-ethernet, other things, like the PCI bus, start to be limiting factors.

    • Re:On XP it works nicely. (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      The Mac architecture has the firewire port hanging off the Northbridge chip, not on the PCI bus.

      This is the same chip that the ethernet port hangs off as well. This allows high bandwith access to memory, and this is especially good on the new DDR RAM based computers, which can serve up a lot of data very quickly.
    • I should be seeing four times the bandwidth on the 1394 link than I see with 100 Ethernet, but in reality it's not that big of a difference. As people are saying about gig-ethernet, other things, like the PCI bus, start to be limiting factors.

      I bet that your laptop's HD is also one of the limiting factors. Even if it is ATA/66 or ATA/100, the sustained read/write rate is not going to be full, and you'll be limited there as well.

      But PCI is undoubtedly an issue as well. I know that the new PowerMacs have the "Xserve architecture" with the Firewire, USB, etc busses on a controller (Agere ASIC I believe) that is attached to the Northbridge...so Firewire probably WILL be faster in some cases on one of them. Someone else posted that other Macs have it direct on the Northbridge...though I cannot confirm or deny that...Firewire is always on the mobo though.

  • 1600 Mbit Firewire (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ibib ( 464750 ) on Wednesday December 04, 2002 @12:12PM (#4811068) Homepage
    When we've got faster Firewire, like 800-1600 Mbit, this will make a huge difference. Instead of Investing in expensive Gigabit-Ethernet switches and cables, just use Firewire instead. Maybe not the ideal solution for all, but for small companies and Lan-parties =) this could be great.
    • The big problem is FW cables are relatively expensive.

      I buy ethernet by the 100m roll... and 50 crimps at a time...

      the price of an ethernet cable (after my time, damnit) is literally a few dollars.

      I've always ended up paying 10x that for FW cables :(

      And long ones are even more expensive ;)

  • second NIC card (Score:2, Interesting)

    by xj9000 ( 598397 )
    another advatage i see to this would be using the FireWire port as a second ethernet device. You could connect your mac to two seperate networks allowing "secure" communication through one card and standard communication through the other. If you already have a FireWire port why add a second NIC card... which might not be possible in a portable.

  • Any iPod-based Applications? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by kalidasa ( 577403 ) on Wednesday December 04, 2002 @12:32PM (#4811226) Journal
    I know this is for OS X, and the OS on the iPod is different, but what about using IP-over-Firewire for IP synching of iPods?
    • A beowulf cluster of iPods?
    • I'm not quite sure what you mean. Right now the iPod *already* syncs over Firewire. Or do you mean remote syncing when you are on the road? Plug into a friend's Mac and sync with your computer back home?

      That might work, but would mean that you'd have to have a lot working in between. (i.e. you couldn't be behind a general NAT server, the ports can't be hidden by a firewall, etc.) There are other issues as well.

      Don't get me wrong, it is doable. But it seems that for a general solution for the general public there are too many things that could go wrong. Try explaining to the non-technical Mac user why their ISP is blocking this feature.

      Further, who really needs that sort of thing? It sounds to me like a nice 3rd party opportunity. But even there you'd still need the software on the Mac hosting your iPod's connection to the net. I suspect though that all you'd need to do is snag that iPod software for Linux (opensource) and then add a bit of a socking talking (easy and you could crib it from an FTP server if you must).

      So the project isn't that hard. I'm just not sure but what it is a solution in search of a problem though. After all don't you typically need to sync only when you've changed what music is in iTunes? And if you've done that, aren't you already in front of your computer? So why the need for an IP connection between the iPod and your computer?

    • The iPod doesn't have a networking stack, so that would require a lot of work.
    • It's already connected. What would you possibly gain? Think about it.

  • Repeat after me: (Score:4, Funny)

    by Genady ( 27988 ) <gary.rogers@maRA ... minus herbivore> on Wednesday December 04, 2002 @12:36PM (#4811255)
    IP Over Firewire is not the new localtalk. IP Over Firewire is not the new localtalk. IP Over Firewire is not... oh the hell with it.

    Why do I see the little daisy chain boxes showing up in schools again?

    (But you see Mr. School administrator with shrinking funds, you don't need to buy a hub or switch, we've got that covered.)
  • How do you connect it to an ethernet switch or hub? Or is this strictly for FW to FW connectins?

    Any ideas?

    • Ummm, you don't. You put a Firewire/IP card in your router and then route between the networks. Kinda like you do now with Tokin Ring. You remember Tokin Ring don't you? FDDI? StarNet? er...
      • No one has said so explicitly so far, but presumably each firewire cable is a simple peer to peer connection. So to connect 3 computers, you need two cables, and at least one computer with 2 or more firewire ports. That central computer would then route IP packets between the two end computers.

        If that's correct, then it's really quite immaterial what medium each segment of the network uses. You could replace one of the firewire cables with IR, or ethernet, or 'Wet-piece-of-string'(TM) and nothing would fundamentally change. Each time a packet needed to get to a non-adjacent computer, it would be routed by each intermediate machine. I believe that's how networking was first done before ethernet allowed connecting more than two computers to the same bit of copper.

        The good thing is that the actual medium for the signal is abstracted away and applications only need to know about IP packets. So you just need a network stack that can route packets between different network interfaces, which is pretty-much bog standard and the way IP is supposed to work anyway.
        • No one has said so explicitly so far, but presumably each firewire cable is a simple peer to peer connection. So to connect 3 computers, you need two cables, and at least one computer with 2 or more firewire ports. That central computer would then route IP packets between the two end computers.

          That's not how it works. All the machines in a FireWire chain are essentially sharing a single broadcast medium, like Ethernet.
    • Simple, just setup routing between your FireWire interface and your Ethernet interface. Then connect that computer to the hub or switch.
  • Beo--oh nevermind. It's a tired old joke, even if it's appropriate here. :)
  • hmm. I installed it on my powerbook, but it had the annoying side effect of deleting all my network settings. (all of my "locations" are gone in the Network preference pane, had to set them up again)

    I've filed a bug report with Apple. Hopefully it was just some oddity with my machine.

  • I just tried it here and its slightly worse than fast ethernet. Probably due to its prerelease status... No doubt its cool stuff though the performance is very erratic.
  • I'd like to hear about using IP over firwire for clustering purposes, are there any advantages besides price? does Firewire/1394 use a different bus or i/o than ethernet and could this increase overall throughput or decrease latency issues when clustering?

    I mean jeez what better way to set up a beowul.... ;-p
  • Apple Network Attached Storage

    Just wait.

  • Here is a slightly bulked up version of my submission for this story:

    Ok first, the official name used to be IEEE-1394, but not surprisingly, eventually they decided to just go with FireWire (which was previously an Apple-only name for the technology). Current version is 1394a which tops out at 400 Mbps, next is 1394b which starts at 800 Mbps.

    Apple has been a strong proponent and developer of the technology. Sony also (they like to call it i.Link) Mostly it is used to connect to DV cams, but you can also use it for other peripherals that need high speed. I use it for my external hard drive and an external CD burner. But of course, you could also in theory use it for networking. Hence, IP-over-FireWire (as compared to say, the current IP-over-Ethernet). The standard specifying this is RFC 2734 [ietf.org]. (To be very technical, this only specifies the IPv4 implementation.)

    Microsoft supports 1394 [microsoft.com] and in particular had an IP1394 stack for a while, in ME [microsoft.com] and now in XP [microsoft.com]. The Linux 1394 [linux1394.org] project has been working on it, but it had a lot of trouble getting off the ground. And now (finally) IP1394 is available from Apple.

    It will be interesting to see if the Apple implementation interoperates with the Microsoft one.

    My Master's project [cs.dal.ca] is on this topic. My school page is sadly out-of-date, I need to update it ASAP.

  • My take.... (Score:3, Informative)

    by djupedal ( 584558 ) on Wednesday December 04, 2002 @09:09PM (#4815691)
    I've been testing the FireWire networking software solution from
    UniBrain. Unibrain's solution, by the way, provides for more than just
    I.P. ...it supports other protocols as well. I'm looking forward to
    having Firewire networking built into OS X. More choices are good. I'm
    wondering if this indicates a move towards next generation 800mbps
    Firewire, by Apple, as well.

    On my Mac, Firewire networking software provides two more ports similar
    to built-in ethernet, and treats them the same in the network panel in
    OS X. They show up as two additional ethernet adapters. What I'm really
    looking for is the same capability under Linux, so I can connect two
    computers using firewire networking...OS X and Mandrake Linux 9.0. So
    far, only custom Linux kernals built for clustering offer this ability.
    [
    http://kenlinux.no-ip.org/gallery/vie w_photo.php?s et_albumName=Stuff-
    01&id=net01 ]

    Theoretically, I can dual mode the two firewire channels in my
    computers to run at 800Mbps (channel bonding). Of course, gigabit
    ethernet would provide increased speed, but it would also involve
    buying more hardware, at least in my case. Like we say "...run what ya
    'brung..." If your hardware provides gigabit ethernet, use it :)

    Distance between nodes is a problem for Firewire networking. Maximum
    distance is about 15 feet without repeaters, etc. At this time,
    Firewire hubs cost approx. the same as ethernet hubs. Note I don't
    think that all Firewire hubs offer similar capability/compatibility.
    Test before you buy.

    Don't forget Apple's Firewire target disc mode if you simply want to
    pass files between two computers in a hurry.

    Here is a quick little generic Firewire networking guide:
    [ http://www.homenethelp.com/network/firewire.asp ]

    Unibrain:
    [ http://www.unibrain.com/products/ieee-1394/firenet .htm ]
    (If you don't qualify as an Apple Developer, but you still wish to take
    a look at OS X Firewire networking, Unibrain has a timed demo available
    for testing)

    Also note that firewire networking is currently a part of Windows XP.
    OS X is playing ketchup.
    • good info

      Do you know if Unibrain is ever going to release an RFC 2734 compliant FireNet?
      • >RFC 2734 ...no info, sorry. They're pretty tight lipped, at least in my case. They have shown a tendency to release broader coverage apps, and this in turn helps them market their hardware, so.... I suspect there is a lot going on the background right now, with 800mbps Firewire being RSN, and networked free standing storage being the next big thang :)
      • Now that Apple and Microsoft are giving away RFC 2734 implementations, I can't see why Unibrain would bother to write one.
    • Doesn't the next firewire also support 100' cables?
    • The tower macs and the Titanium PowerBooks both come with gigabit ethernet already. now i just need a gigabit card in my linux server (and i wouldn't mind a gigabit switch while i'm at it).
  • One thing bogging down gig-ethernet today is the tiny 1500K frames. Some card/switch combinations can handle 9K frames, which cuts overhead way down. Anyone know how big the 'frames' in FWIP are. It would be phat if I could adjust it (or if it SELF adjusted!) for either max throughput or minimum latency depending on what it's being used for. BTW, the max IP frame is 64K, AFAIK, which would make transferring large files really efficient, while smaller frames are better suited for realtime streams.
  • As we are fond of saying:

    IP On Everything

  • Did my PowerBook just become a mobile firewall? (Score:3, Funny)

    by amichalo ( 132545 ) on Thursday December 05, 2002 @05:44PM (#4821979)
    Currently, I can't use my Powerbook as a firewall because I don't have two NIC cards.

    By connecting my ethernet card to my cable modem, and my firewire port to my server, my laptop now becomes a FireWireWall :)

    Smile, it tastes good
  • Isn't FireWire cable limited to 15 feet between power sources? Might have to do all the devices in the same room if this is still true, provided you didn't want repeaters. Repeaters could add up though and make this a less effective option.

    But hey, at least my friend and I can LAN our iBooks for some good ole MOH:AA or Civ 3 on a plane flight to England! :-)

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