Well yesterday started off as a good day. I sold some car parts to go towards funding a truck I’m buying, and after doing some other miscellaneous positive things around the office, I felt pretty good about the day. Somewhere around mid afternoon, I got an e-mail from an editor. He needed a file of mine from a year or so ago, so I went onto my Time Capsule where I store some of my files. As I’m clicking through the folders, I started noticing the beachball come up more and more often. The Time Capsule wasn’t responding, like the drive was … oh crap. The drive was failing.

Instantly I backed up anything I needed to onto another drive, frantically making sure everything was covered. It took several minutes to transfer over 3GB worth of data, and I knew I was screwed. That money I got that morning was just enough to buy an Airport Extreme and a 1TB hard drive. Time to go to the store.

Well since I was at the Apple Store, I had to play with an iPad, right? So I went over to the table and played around with the product. It felt so nice in my hands. Natural, and not as heavy as I’ve read in other reviews. I also found out that I could type on it really efficiently, but that’s because I don’t type like most people, and really only use three fingers to get the job done. Suddenly, my excuses for buying an iPad were going out the window.

I seriously considered tapping into my car fund to pre-order a 3G model, but I can’t do that yet. Maybe if I land a big client or move some other stuff in the next few weeks I’ll buy one. But now the decision has been made and it’s official – I have to have one. Now I just have to figure out how.

If you have an Airport Extreme and you’re thinking of using it along with an external USB drive as your primary Time Machine back-up – you may want to think again. Over at TidBITS there is an article confirming that Apple is officially not supporting the “feature” and even speculation that the feature itself is an accident.

Apparently, while using an external drive with the AirPort Extreme works after the current software update, it is erratic, and untrustworthy. There is speculation that the feature was left turned on by accident when the software update was released…if that’s the case, then those of you using it might find that you wake up one morning to a software update that disables the feature.

I think Apple’s on shaky ground with this one. Deliberately disabling or not supporting a feature for the purpose of selling another product is never well received by consumers, and Apple has had enough complaints with notebook issues as of late – they don’t need this too.

What they need to do is enable and support this feature Jobs promised users the first time he mentioned Time Machine in a Keynote. It’s the right thing to do, and they need to start doing more of that.

Have you used this feature of your Airport Extreme? Is it working? Sound off in the comments below.

Update: I just got off the phone with Apple Technical Support in regards to this issue. I asked them “Do you support Time Machine backups via a USB external hard drive using an Airport Extreme?” The response I received was “With the latest firmware update that feature has become available but we do not support it.”

If you don’t believe me, feel free to call them yourself. 1-800-APL-CARE (1-800-275-2273) if you live in the US. Click Here for international numbers.

Yesterday’s Time Machine/Airport update finally activated a feature that just about everyone has been waiting for. You can now attach a USB external hard drive to your Airport Extreme and back up your files wirelessely from any Mac on the network. Essentially, it makes your Airport Extreme and an external USB drive into your very own Time Capsule.

This feature is one that Apple began promoting long before the official release of Leopard. Prior to launch, however, the feature mysteriously disappeared, and we didn’t see or hear about it again until Apple launched the Time Capsule product. It’s good to see them add this back in as an option for current Airport Extreme owners.

So this weekend, I decided to take the plunge into the world of 802.11n. My current wi-fi router has been acting up, so I decided it was time to get a new one – and I might as well go all Apple – so I got an Airport Extreme.

And it didn’t work.

That’s right, I got it home from Best Buy late Saturday evening, hooked it up, and it connected to the net, and noticed that their was a firmware update – so it downloaded it – and it never connected to the net again. I spent hours looking up support topics on my iPhone (because my desktop and laptop were not able to get on the Internet). I finally had to give up, and wait until the next day to call Apple.

So on Sunday morning I call Apple and spend about 2 hours on the phone with them (most of it holding). The people were very nice and helpful, but ultimately they couldn’t figure out a way to get the thing working, and I even heard one of the tech guys mumble “I wonder if we just got a bad batch of Airports out there?” Apparently I’m not the only one having problems.

SO – I took that one back to Best Buy and exchanged it for another Airport Extreme. I came home, installed it (skipping the firmware update this time), and everything worked swimmingly. For a while. Late in the day I decided to update the firmware (thinking that the other Airport was probably just a dud). Well, after I updated the firmware this time the Airport still worked, but since then it has been dropping out.

It’ll work for a few hours or a few minutess, then the network will suddenly be gone with no warning. The Airport will still have a solid green light indicating that its working fine – but the entire network is gone – not just the Internet, and I’ll have to unplug it and plug it back in before it will work. This has happened 5 times in the last 24 hours. It’s completely unacceptable.

Any ideas on what might be the problem? Does anyone know how to go back to the old firmware?

I’m getting close to just taking it back, saying “to hell” with the Airport Extreme, and getting a Linksys. thoughts?

You can download it here.

Notebook Review

The direct link to the update is here

It is recommended for all Intel Macs.

UPDATE: As you can tell from the snarky commenter below…Notebook Review is completely wrong.  Mac User has more on it.
link via digg

Fanboys and girls all over the ‘net have their own opinions on the validity of this claim that “accounting” is forcing their hand…and I’m not sure I buy it myself…but when it comes down to it…it’s only $2 bucks.

No matter what your opinion on it is, you can avoid the fee by purchasing the new Airport Extreme for $179.
via Mac Rumors