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What if you had degrees in symbolic systems and computer science from Stanford University? And what if you were one of Google’s first 20 employees?
What home router would you get?
Would you get the latest and greatest from consumer router specialists such as NetGear or Linksys? Or, since you’ve got money and brainpower to burn, maybe you’d get something more robust, say an enterprise-grade edge router from Cisco or Juniper.
Nope.
If you’re Mayer you’d get a $179 Apple Airport Extreme and a pair of Apple’s dead simple $99 Airport Express routers. Then you'd build a home-based mesh network, that’s what you’d do. Another shocker: the Wisconsin native -- who has become a bit of a San Francisco socialite -- shops at Walmart.
Mayer, vice President of location and local services at Google, posted an account of her latest technology acquisition to her Google Plus account Tuesday afternoon.
On the router question, I went out and bought a Netgear N600 at Walmart that same night. But, I had continued problems even with the new router -- with range and devices getting conflicting IPs (I have a bunch of phones, tablets, Tivos, Google TVs, Apple TVs, etc.). So, for Christmas, I asked for an Airport Extreme and 2 Airport Expresses (to chain together and create a mesh with better range). I set them all up last night, got all the devices connecting, and so far so good. It's not really a fair comparison, since there are 3 routers to the Netgear's 1, but iStumbler showed a lot more signal strength throughout the house, rarely less than 45%.
I was really impressed with Apple's Airport Utility and how simple it made the set-up and chaining of routers. Hard to make the experience of setting up of a home network beautiful, but at least it was easy.
I kind of wish I had gotten a time capsule for backups, but I was pretty focused on getting a good router system. Plus, that's what DropBox is for ;) +Aseem Sood +Jeff Bartelma
So if you’re looking for an easy way to set up a mesh network of your own, you might want to look into gear from Apple, a company that’s best known for things besides its routers. Of course, your mileage may vary, Mayer does have two more degrees from Stanford University than most of us do.
We're also looking forward to Mayer's report on her newly acquired printer, an HP LaserJet Pro CM1415. "Looking forward to better printing and fewer cartridge changes ;-)," Mayer writes.
