We’ve tested wireless routers from most major vendors (Cisco/Linksys, D-Link, Netgear, etc.) and the most reliable one we’ve found is Apple’s Airport Extreme. It’s a bit more expensive than its competition, but the adage of “you get what you pay for” appears to be in effect here.

These are not intended to be comprehensive instructions for setting up the Airport Extreme hardware itself. There is excellent documentation on Apple’s site and the Airport Extreme Manual is very thorough. This article will simply run through how we recommend configuring an Airport Extreme for use by the Servus system.

Configuration

1. Run the Airport Utility
Once you have your Airport Extreme plugged in, you will need to run the Airport Utility on your Mac or Windows PC. The application will appear as shown below:

Notice the “Base Station b03121″ in the left column — that is the out-of-the-box, unconfigured base station. If the utility isn’t able to find a base station, make sure your wireless is turned on and click the “Rescan” button.

Make sure your base station is highlighted in the left column (by clicking on it) and click the “Manual Setup” button as shown in the screenshot above.

2. Setting Base Station options
The screen should look as follows:

Click the “Base Station” tab as shown above. You will then see the following:

Change all settings to match the screenshot above. You can set the password to anything you want. Note that this is the password for administering the router and not for accessing the wireless network. When finished, click the “Wireless” tab as shown above.

3. Setting Wireless options
You should see the following:

Again, fill out the information as shown in the screenshot above. The password can be anything you want. Note that this is the password that will be entered on the Servus devices to access the network. We recommend making this different than the password set in step 2.

When finished, click the “Wireless Network Options…” button as show above. A box will appear as show below:

Make sure the “Create a closed network” is checked as shown above. This will prevent the Servus network from being advertised and makes it even more secure. When finished, click the “Done” button.

4. Configuring DHCP
Click the “Internet” toolbar item (1) and then the “DHCP” tab (2) as show below:

Change the “DHCP Beginning Address” to “192.168″ as shown above. The rest of the items should automatically change to match the screenshot. Then click the “Update” button in the bottom-right. This will cause the Airport Extreme to reboot.

When the reboot is complete, your wireless network will be ready for use by Servus.

5. Turning off warnings (optional)
Since your Airport Extreme isn’t on the Internet, a yellow LED on the front of the device will continuously blink indicating a warning. This can be turned off if it is bothersome.

Run the Airport Utility and it should look as follows:

Note: If the utility can’t find your Airport Extreme, it may be because you have not joined the Servus network. Make sure the wireless is activated on your Mac/PC and that it has joined the Servus network. Then click the “Rescan” button.

Make sure the “Servus” item is highlighted in the left column and then click the yellow button as shown in the screenshot above. The screen will change as shown below:

Click the checkboxes for all three items and then click the “Update” button as shown above. After a few seconds, the LED on the front of the Airport Extreme will glow a steady green.

Servus floor plans are stored on the Whizzo servers and tied to your account. In order to load a floor plan (or reload your existing one), you will have to log in from within the Servus application itself.

Procedures

1. With Servus running on your tablet, tap the menu button in the upper-right corner (1) and then the “Advanced” menu that appears (2) as shown below.

2. Tap the “Load Table Layout” menu option that appears as shown below circled in red.

3. The “Load Table Layout” dialog will appear as shown below. Enter your Whizzo website username and password, then tap the “Login” button.

4. If you correctly entered your username and password, the “Choose a table layout” dialog will appear as shown below. Tap the table layout that you want to load. Note that there may only be one layout in the list — you still have to tap it.

5. After you tap the table layout, the new layout will load into the Servus floor plan view. The new floor plan will now automatically load by default each time you restart Servus.

If Servus is configured to start automatically when the tablet is powered on, you will not be able to quit Servus and return to the launcher screen without disabling the Servus auto-start. You can easily determine this by tapping the home button while Servus is running. If nothing happens and Servus continues running, then it is set to auto-start. The following procedures will allow you to disable auto-start:

Procedures

1. While Servus is running, tap the clock in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen as shown circled in red below:

2. A dialog will appear in the bottom-right corner as shown below. Tap anywhere in the area within the red circle as shown.

3. The dialog will grow larger and a “Settings” button will appear at the bottom (shown in red below). Tap on it.

4. The Settings dialog will now appear. Tap the “Applications” button (1) in the left column and then tap the “Manage Applications” button (2) that appears in the right column as shown below.

5. A list of applications will appear in the right column. Find the Servus icon and tap on it as shown below. Note: Depending on how many applications you have on your tablet, you may need to scroll to find Servus.

6. The right column will now show information about Servus. Scroll down slightly (drag your finger upwards in the right column) to the “Launch by default” section. There you will see a button titled “Clear defaults” (shown circled in red below). Tap that button and it should disable (turn grey).

7. Tap the back button in the bottom-left corner repeatedly until Servus reappears. Servus will no longer start up b default and tapping the home button in the bottom-left corner will allow you to go to the launcher screen.

Servus can be configured to launch by default when the tablet is powered on. This has the added benefit of preventing the home button from accidentally being hit and returning you to the launcher screen. There are two ways you can do this, both of which assume you have already successfully installed Servus.

Option 1: Tablet Powered On

If your tablet is already running, you should be looking at the launcher screen as shown below:

If you are not at the launcher screen, tap the back button repeatedly until you are.

Once at the launcher screen, tap the home button (circled in red above). The following dialog should appear:

Note: There is a bug in certain version of the ASUS Eee Pad Transformer hardware that prevents this dialog from appearing. What you will see instead is a darkened screen. A workaround for this problem is to rotate the tablet 90 degrees which will force the dialog to appear.

Make sure the “Use by default for this action” checkbox (circled in red) is checked as shown above. Then tap the “Servus” icon.

Servus should start and will automatically start the next time the tablet is rebooted.

Option 2: Tablet Powered Off

If your tablet isn’t running, power it on. When it has completed starting up, the following dialog should appear:

Note: There is a bug in certain version of the ASUS Eee Pad Transformer hardware that prevents this dialog from appearing. What you will see instead is a black screen. A workaround for this problem is to rotate the tablet 90 degrees which will force the dialog to appear.

Make sure the “Use by default for this action” checkbox (circled in red) is checked as shown above. Then tap the “Servus” icon.

Servus should start and will automatically start the next time the tablet is rebooted.

Note: The easiest way to download and install the Servus software is by following the steps below on the tablet itself.

View Your Order History

Go to the orders page on the Servus website. If you aren’t already logged-in, you will be prompted to enter your username and password as shown below. Use the Username and Password you used to purchase Servus. If you didn’t purchase through the website, you were provided a Username and Password in an e-mail you received from Whizzo Software.

Once logged in, you will see your list of orders as shown below. Click on the appropriate order number link as shown circled in red:

Begin the Download

You should now be on the “Order Details” page. Tap on the download link as shown circled in red below:

This will start the Servus download. A download indicator will appear as shown circled in red below. Depending on your device, this may be in either the upper-left or lower-right corners of the screen.

See the article How do I install the software? for installation instructions.

The first time you run Servus on a new device, you are required to activate it. This can be done directly in the Servus software itself and requires an active Internet connection. You will need to have purchased a license key that has never been previously activated on another device. You may also re-activate Servus on an existing device if, for example, you had to re-install the software for some reason.

Activation

When you run Servus on an unactivated device, you will see the following dialog.

Enter the username/password combination that you used to purchase the software from the website. If you didn’t purchase the software directly from the site yourself, you should use the username/password sent in the purchase confirmation e-mail you received from Whizzo Software.

If you are using a device that has been previously activated, Servus will automatically detect the existing license key and use it for device activation. You’re done!

If you are using a device that has never been activated before, you will see the following dialog.

This dialog shows you all the licenses you have purchased but have yet to activate. Select one and Servus will automatically associate that license key with the new device and activate the software. You’re done!