Re: Airport question

Garner Miller wrote:
In article <xThki.29865$xk5.21511@edtnps82>,
Robert Montgomery <info-block@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:


I just found an Airport icon on the upper, right corner of my screen.

When I clicked on the icon, a drop-down menu showed up, with a bunch of names in a list, which sounded like nicknames. What does this mean?


Those are the names of wireless networks that your machine can see. The names are customizable by the owners of those access points. If the owner hasn't done so, they'll just be the default, such as "linksys" or "Apple Network XXXX."

Thanks, Garner, it helps, but my computer is not supposed to be connected with any other computers in a network. I was appalled when I saw those name under the Bluetooth icon, especially because I recgnized one as a neighbour and business associate!

It was the name of the building manager who lives in the same building as me, but two floors down from me and about 40 feet to the east! I pay the rent to him and he looks after the building I live in!

I don't want his name showing up on my computer unannounced! I want my privacy!

I'm worried about spying into my computer or people piggy-backing off of my Internet connection.

Are those scenarios real possibilites?

As a precaustion I turned off Bluetooth in the Finder menu at the top, right of my screen and went to System Preferences > Bluetooth > Settings > Discoverable and unchecked that, and also in Bluetooth > Sharing, I unchecked everything there, but I'm not sure what all that Bluetooth stuff means, except that it's for wirless networking.

It's not practical for me to close my Internet connection every night when i'm not using my computer to prevent people from freeloading off of my paid Internet connection, because I'm using Mail, Safari, Firefox and Dreamweaver and it's too much work to close and open those programs every day and my computer is too slow for me to have to wait for that every day.

Robert


And is that icon normally there? I hadn't noticed it before. It seemed to appear suddenly on its own.


I don't recall whether it's there by default, but you can add or remove it as you like. To toggle it on or off, open System Preferences from the Apple menu, go to Network, then choose "Airport" from the drop-down "Show:" menu near the top. There's a checkbox near the bottom to switch it on and off.

Hope that helps.
.

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