Setting up a Wi-Fi connection at home can be such a chore especially when 1) the Wi-Fi router you have just bought won’t play nice, 2) your Internet service provider can’t make up its mind whether to give you PPPoE (that’s point-to-point protocol over ethernet or glorified dial-up for DSL) service or a static, always-connected line, and 3) you have absolutely no idea how to set one up.

Here’s a bit of good news for MacBook Pro users in Tacloban, Leyte and the Philippines (which have probably grown over the course of the past year): you can share your laptop’s Internet connection through its AirPort, making it act like a wireless router in your home.

So without further ado, I give you five simple steps on how to share your laptop’s Internet connection through its AirPort:

1. Connect your laptop to your home Internet via ethernet cable. Yes, that cable that runs from your modem to your desktop computer or the one that connects the modem to the router.
2. Boot up your MacBook Pro, and then open the System Preferences interface.
3. Click on Sharing (it’s under Internet & Wireless) to open the Sharing interface.
4. Select Internet Sharing from the left-hand list (don’t click on the tick box). Make sure that you’re sharing connection from Ethernet to computers using AirPort.
5. Check the box beside Internet Sharing, and then you’re good to go.

Yeah, it’s that simple. Now you can enjoy Internet on mobile devices within your home. Take note, however, that following the steps above doesn’t guarantee the security of your Wi-Fi. There are additional steps to achieve this that I’ll tackle in a future posting. Remember, too, that this trick only works with MacBook Pro and other Apple products.

If you own a Windows-based laptop, you can achieve the same trick with the help of an app called Connectify. Read Write Web has a great review of the service.

Special thanks to our colleague, Joel Llano, for the tip.

• Tweet
• Pin It