I know people buy Airport Expresses to expand their WiFi network at home or to stream music to another room in their house by connecting speakers to the Express. I got an old Express (g speed not n) lying around and wonder how I could put it to use.
Could I plug it in an electrical outlet at a Starbucks and use the Express to create my own secure network off of their unsecured network?
I could take it with me with traveling and create a secure WiFi network in my hotel room allowing all my devices to connect to it via WiFi. It would be great if it had good range so I could have WiFi in the lobby without paying the hotel for their WFi, but I doubt it. It seems hotels charge for their WiFi, but don’t charge for ethernet internet access.
— TM
Definitely not. Even if you could somehow connect to the Starbucks network with the Express, the communication from the Express to the Starbucks network wouldn't be encrypted. But you can't connect to it in the first place -- you can't force a wifi network to let it expand itself using another base station.
You can't do it in a hotel, either. Same problem. The hotel wifi needs to allow itself to be extended through your Express.
But you CAN hook it into a hotel room WIRED network, and create a secure wifi network in your room. I've done that many times with a small portable Linksys much like the Express.