Setting up Airport Express

The Airport Express that I ordered from Apple showed up while we were in Washington State. There is a good review and overview of the unit on the arstechnica.com web site.

I have struggled to get it configured and set-up over the last two nights. The Airport Express Assistant utility had a number of error messages when I tried to start it. Finally, I resorted to using the Airport Admin Utility, but still got not get it working. After digging through about 60 pages of documentation titled Designing Airport Extreme Networks for Windows XP and Windows 2000, I found a note that said that you had to enter the WEP key in with a preceeding $ sign. When I tried this, the Airport Express started working and iTunes on the Media Center PC could see it. I am planning on setting it up with some speakers under the cabinets in the kitchen.

It rarely get over 100 degrees at our house; we are within about 1 mile of the main channel of the Sacramento River and we get a delta breeze that keeps things cooler. Today was one of those rare days where it topped 100 degrees!