If you have an Apple iBook and you are wondering what you need to make your ibook wireless, this is the guide for you!

Apple iBooks come in three distict models: The clamshell model, the G3 dual USB model, and finally, the G4 model. How can you tell the difference? The iBook G4 has a slot loading CD drive and says "iBook G4" on the frame right beneath the display. The clamshell and dual USB model ibooks only say "iBook" beneath the screen, and they have tray loading CD drives. Now that you know what kind of iBook you have, what kind of airport card should you buy? Many people are confused as to which of apples two airport wireless cards fit there computer. The answer is quite simple...

If you have a clamshell ibook or a G3 dual USB ibook, your computer needs apple's original airport card. It is an 802.11b card. This means it will transfer information at 11 mbps.

If you have an apple iBook G4, you need an airport extreme card. The extreme card is an 802.11g card. It will transfer data faster than apples original card -54 mbps!

How can you tell the difference between apple airpot cards? There are some very blatent differences in the appearence of the cards. The extreme card says "AirPort Extreme" right on the top of the card. The original apple airport card says "AirPort" on the top of the card. The extreme card has a mail connectors (you can see the actual metal of the connectors, the original card has female connecters (you cant see any of the metal connectors). And finally, the extreme card is silver, while the original card has a white label on the top and the bottom!

802.11b verses 802.11g: 802.11b apple products will work with all 802.11g products! The same is in reverse: all 802.11g apple products will work with all apple 802.11b products. This is called being backwards compatible. Now just because they work with eachother does not mean that you can put an airport extreme card into a clamshell iBook! The reason you can not is because the harddware will not fit. But, if you have an Airport Extreme Basestation, or an Airport Express basestation, (both of those basestations run on 802.11g cards) your original apple airport card will be able to join those networks. And if you have a Graphite Basestation (it uses an 802.11b network) your iBook G4 will still be able to work on that network.