One of the more frustrating computing challenges I’ve encountered is setting up a wireless network in my home. I knew enough not to attempt to try this on my own and called on some of very clever men and women I work with. But it was a booger, even for them.

Today my buddy George came over and set up my new Apple AirPort Extreme (“Easy as a Mac”):

“Just take the AirPort Extreme out of the box. Plug it in. Install the software, and in five minutes or less, you’re good to go.”

And it literally took George 5 minutes to install and configure the base station. My Netgear base station was doing the job but the AirPort Extreme had a couple of features I wanted.

Before, I had to have my Dell desktop box turned on to print from our laptops. We can now print directly through the router.

I also now have an external hard drive hooked to the router…and visible on my MacBook desktop when I’m at home. No more storage issues and three times a week the MacBook does an automatic back-up.

Yes, I’m sure it’s possible to accomplish these things in Windows on PC’s. But the folks at Apple just made it fast and simple. And I promise to share any problems I have with the new base station down the road.

Speaking of down the road… the Apple TV is scheduled to start shipping in early March and George tells me our new TV has the necessary connections and cables to take advantage of the features.

Update: Surfing from the couch (base station upstairs in the office) and –perceptually– pages are loading twice as fast as before (on the Netgear base station).