As it happens, folks, we're all sitting in that pregnant pause between the NAB announcements and the annual shareholders' meeting, so things are actually surprisingly slow in Appleland right this second. That's a blessing in disguise, though, because it gives us the chance to fulfill a portion of our Public Service Announcement duties by offering a few helpful hints on how to live with AirPort Update 3.4. For those of you who haven't heard of the affliction, several viewers have written in complaining that after applying the update, their AirPort Extreme-equipped Macs are now showing greatly reduced signal strength and slower data speeds, and some even report completely dropped signals after a period of use-- which is tragic, although personally we're relieved that Apple's Quality Control department hasn't gotten boringly conscientious yet after all.

If you want proof that not only AtAT viewers are suffering from these symptoms, look no further than MacFixIt, MacInTouch, O'Grady's PowerPage, etc. As for us, prior to the update, our own test PowerBook showed a healthy four bars of signal strength from the AtAT couch; after the update, negative two. (While we aren't entirely sure what a negative signal strength means, whenever we tried accessing a network service, we received a mild electric shock and the PowerBook laughed at us derisively.) We found we were only able to establish and maintain a usable signal by climbing up on the desk in the production room, placing the PowerBook directly on top of the Base Station that's sitting on a high bookshelf, holding one leg out in the air pointing magnetic north at 90 degrees from vertical, and repeatedly singing the chorus from "It's Raining Men" in a high-pitched, squeaky voice. This doesn't bother us, however, since that's how we usually work anyway, but some people might find it inconvenient.

Apple's own advice on how to maximize your AirPort reception states that you should "rotate your computer until signal strength peaks," but we've found that several people are less productive when their PowerBooks' screens are facing away from them. Instead, we recommend that viewers suffering from AirPort 3.4 woes boost their signal strength by covering themselves head to toe in aluminum foil, keeping both feet in at least three inches of standing water (deionized, of course), and removing all electrical wiring from the walls of their workplaces and domiciles. We also have reason to believe that having the cells of one's entire skeleton bonded to indestructible Adamantium molecules may improve reception. Just keep those claws extended.

If none of that works, may we suggest that email is highly overrated, and that you consider rediscovering the lost art of letter-writing? Of course, another possible course of action would be to revert to a previous version of the AirPort software, but that seems to us to be a drastic and Luddite move when you could simply stick with the latest and greatest software and instead communicate via letters, smoke signals, and semaphore. But hey, if you don't mind people pointing at you and giggling because you're running out-of-date software, that's your business. Loser.