[X4U] Setting up wireless printing

[Neil Laubenthal]

Most of the current flock of wireless access points have printer ports . . .802.11n is the latest standard although I can't remember if the white MacBook supports it or only 802.11g. Most/all of the current access points support both although if you set the access point (at least with Apple's Airport Extreme) to n only it works a little faster with n clients than if it's in n/g mode. Plug the printer in . . .set it up in the web page interface for the wireless point, and install the drivers on the Mac.

The easiest thing to do is buy an Airport Extreme . . .it's pretty cookbook to setup. As an alternative . . .a Time Capsule is essentially an AIrport Extreme with a hard drive in it for Time Machine backups. Both of those are more expensive than some of their competition though . . .Netgear, Linksys, and many others offer n/g compatible wireless routers.

Depending on how you currently get your broadband . . .you may already have wireless built into the router that Verizon or your DSL or cable company provides . . .although most of those are still g only.

Apple's solution is more expensive but more seamless and pretty much guaranteed to work. Other routers usually work as well . . .but the setup and management is not as simple as with Apple's hardware.

 
On Dec 5, 2009, at 1:28 PM, Mark Des Cotes wrote:

> Hi everyone,
> 
> I just bought my wife a new (refurbished) MacBook from Apple for Christmas. This will be her/our first OSX laptop (we've owned two previous old PowerBooks with OS9 on them). I know that one of the first things she'll want to know how to do is print. Right now our printer is plugged into our iMac via USB. I'm going to have to purchase a new wireless router as the very old one I have is Wireless B I think and it's slow as anything. Is Wireless N the newest? What's the easiest way to set up the printer for my wife to print from the MacBook? Should I be looking for a special type of wireless router? I'm very knowledgeable when it comes to the ins and outs of my Mac but I'm naive when it comes to the whole wireless thing. I would prefer it if she didn't have to rely on the iMac in case it's put to sleep when she needs to print.


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There are only three kinds of stress; your basic nuclear stress, cooking stress, and A$$hole stress. The key to their relationship is Jello.

neil