Network Printing

My wife is now studying for a Masters degree, so now the table in the dining room has been taken over, which is only fair given that the study has been taken over by computers so there is no room to put a book down. The table is massive, we once has 14 people sat around it in relative comfort. There is at least plenty of room for her.

We bought a laptop for her to use. This connects wirelessly as its quite a way to the dining room from the study and she refused to have cat 5 cable strewn around the house. She then complained that if she wanted to print she had to go to the study to collect it which would break her train of thought. Sharing the existing printer isn't ideal as the computer it's attached to isn't always turned on.

My first option was to buy another printer which would be convenient should the existing one pack up/run out of ink at a strategically important moment but it would also be relatively expensive as we would then have two printers to buy ink for etc. In addition she moves the laptop around a lot and I don't want her plugging more than necessary into it at a time. One answer to this might be a universal docking station such as the Kensington though there are other ones with slightly differing features. The issue with this would be that the laptop would have to be on for the other computers to print and it would be more expense.

This led to my second and (eventually) favoured option which was to buy a print server. I had read a lot about wireless print servers and noted that some of them were incompatible with certain printers. I also noticed that some of them were USB 1.1 which doesn't make a lot of sense given the prevalence of USB 2 now. Others were wireless b which again doesn't make sense. The final issue with this was about compatibility with my Netgear wireless kit. I first considered their wireless print server with 4 port switch. I couldn't find out if it was compatible with my HP 5650 and Netgear weren't forthcoming when I emailed them. I also considered buying another wireless access point the same as the one I had, using it as a bridge and connecting it with cat 5 to a print server. Then I read that this print server is particularly slow to print. My printer isn't a multi function but it does have a USB and a parallel port which means that I can use either. The advantage of the second Wireless access point would be that it would improve general wireless access around the house. The main disadvantage would be cost.

Under increasing pressure to resolve this and in desperation I went to my local PC world to see what they had. I've taken advantage of their collect@store before. In my case I bought World of Warcraft for £20 rather than the £35 or so that it was on the same shelves for. They had nothing but next door there is a Comet which sometimes has interesting stuff. They had a Linksys . I've always fancied their kit but never used it. It was a bit more than I wanted to pay but remember I was under pressure. As it was the only model of print server they had I asked the sales assistant if I could get a refund if it didn't work with my network/printer asI knew that was a potential issue. They said no - I couldn't. I decided it was a bit too expensive to use as a doorstop.

Later I went to my local Staples. They always have a good selection of networking kit and it was better priced than Comet. In the end I was spoilt for choice but plumped for a Belkin. I've read good things about their support, this device supports up to 2 printers and the price wasn't too bad compared to buying online. I decided that the compromise would be printing using USB 1.1 which still should be reasonably quick. They gave me up to 14 days to claim a refund and as they had others it was far less of an issue than Comet. I reasoned that if I couldn't get the Belkin to work that I would give the 3com a go. It was only £5 dearer and was USB 2, though only supporting 1 printer.

It's not the prettiest device ever but I started to set it up. Following the quickstart instructions, it wasn't recognised and it also only appeared to use WEP encryption. My network uses WPA so it would mean reconfiguration all round!! I connected it to my switch on a spare port, that showed that it did support WPA, it just didn't show in the installation wizard. It also showed that the device would only use wireless OR cat5, it can't use both at the same time, minorly irritating but understandable. At least it meant I could use it as a wired print server should I want/need too.

Connecting by cat5 was much more successful when I found the IP address, which defaults to 192.168.0.253. Having configured it, I still couldn't print. Hmm, Time to read the manual! That suggested that I run a program on the CD but this program continually gave me an error which appeared to be related to a help file and refused to run. Time for drastic measures, in a final attempt to get it working I switched encryption off on my Access Point and on the print server. Run the wizard from the CD and bingo the test page churns out. It was getting late so I left it like that until the next day, when I got it in the neck from my wife because her laptop couldn't get onto the web!

The installation puts it's own printer port driver onto the computer which also needs a little configuration particularly if you have two printers. I then reactivated WPA on the device, reactivated it on the Access Point (resulting in a happy wife!), recycled the power on the print server and again it worked. Fortunately you can save the print server settings to a separate file as a backup. I say this as to enable printing on any of my computers I will have to run the wizard which as I said doesn't allow WPA encryption but does overwrite the settings on the device. It's a shame that Belkin didn't have an option on the wizard to just install the print port driver. Other than that and the fact it is only USB 1.1 it seems to be a decent little gadget and when I have gone through the pain of setting it up, all should be well.