January 23, 2012

Set up Mac as an Access Point, and connect Kindle to it

If having kindle to connect to wifi is a problem, you can set up MacBook to use ethernet to use internet, and set up wifi as an access point.  This is very useful with services like "Send to Kindle" and "Kindle It" to send web documents to Kindle for offline reading.  I read a lot of technical web pages and reading them while commuting would save a lot of time.  But it requires wifi to transfer the documents to Kindle.  (Or, pay for the user document service to Amazon over 3G, and non-3G kindle doesn't have this option.)


Tested with Kindle keyboard 3G and Kindle Fire.  Great tip.


Source:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2743129?start=0&tstart=0


HOW TO GET IT TO WORK:

A. On your Mac:

  1. Make sure Internet works in general and that internet sharing is properly configured and works with another (Apple) computer / iDevice (Apple device)
  2. System Preferences => Sharing => Internet Sharing (disabled to configure) => AirPort (enabled) => AirPort Options...
  3. Network Name: (alpha characters, upper/lower case mix, no spaces; other characters might work, not tested; space(s) in-between might work, not tested)
  4. Channel: Automatic
  5. Enable encryption (using WEP) => enabled (optional)
    1. Password, Confirm Password: (optional, 5 characters or 13 characters, depending on key length at next step, alphanumeric tested, upper/lower case mix tested, other characters tested but not as the first character)
    2. WEP Key Length: 40 or 128 bit (both tested)
  6. OK to confirm => Internet Sharing (enabled) => Start

B. On your Kindle:
  1. Make sure the network name you chose above shows up, if not select "Rescan".
  2. Connect => Password (optional, if encryption selected above)
  3. Unable to Connect to Wi-Fi Network => set up network
  4. Network Name: (should be properly filled in)
  5. Connection Type: static (switch to)
  6. IP Address: 10.0.2.x (I chose 4 for x)
  7. Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0
  8. Router: 10.0.2.1
  9. DNS: 10.0.2.1
  10. Security Type: WEP (WPA, WPA2 so far unsupported by OS X)
  11. Password: (should be properly filled in)
  12. connect