Wireless printing with PC and Mac

Fred McKenzie wrote:
> In article
> ,
> Leo wrote:
>
>> Now, the question is, can I
>> have a printer cabled to the PC and set up my PowerBook to print
>> through it (ie through the PC, which has some sort of USB wireless
>> "dongle") wirelessly?
>
> Leo-
>
> I believe you can, but I'm not the one to tell you how! If you can
> think of the wireless as working just like a wired connection, perhaps
> you can get the PC printer to work from the Macintosh.
>
> A "wireless printer" is just a printer that has an internal wireless
> adapter. You may be able to find an external adapter.
>
> My preference is to connect the printer to the wireless base station.
> If it happens to be a network (Ethernet) printer, that should be easy.
> If it is a USB printer, then your base station must have USB capability.
> The Apple AirPort Extremes do, but I'm not sure about Belkin.
>
> Fred
I would suggest a wired printer server adapter, either parallel or USB,
and connect to your hub via an IP cable. Most adapters feature web based
installation which basically means you give the adapter a permanent
address (like 192.168.1.2).

On the windows side you create a port to this address and use that port
name when adding the printer. This all is covered is most adapters Iv'e
used (belkin among them)

The adapter should be visible to the mac as a network printer. It's a
cheaper route than getting a IP savvy printer, and portable to your next
printer.
--
/los "I was a teenage net-random."
 >> Stay informed about: Wireless printing with PC and Mac 

On 2007-12-19, Leo wrote:
> I've been thinking about buying a wireless printer but I'm wondering
> if it's necessary...
>
> I have a PowerBook G4 (10.3.9) and my son has a PC. They're linked to
> the net through a Belkin wireless router. Now, the question is, can I
> have a printer cabled to the PC and set up my PowerBook to print
> through it (ie through the PC, which has some sort of USB wireless
> "dongle") wirelessly? I'd rather not have the printer cabled to the
> PowerBook, it has to be the other way around.
>

When you set up the printer on your Powerbook running 10.3.x it needs to
be a Windows Shared printer. I've only set this up once or twice so I
can't remember the dialog boxes to help guide you but here are manula
instructions from Apple:

How to manually add a Windows shared printer

1. Open Printer Setup Utility (located in /Applications/Utilities).
2. Mac OS X 10.4.x users: Choose Add Printer from the Printers menu,
then hold the Option key while clicking the "More Printers" button.
Mac OS X 10.3.x users: Hold the Option key down while choosing Add
Printer from the Printers menu.
3. Choose Advanced from the first pop-up menu.
4. Choose Windows Printer via SAMBA from the Device pop-up menu.
5. In the Device Name field, type the name you would like to use for
this printer in Mac OS X.
6. In the Device URI field, use one of the following formats to link to
the printer:

smb://user:password@workgroup/server/sharename
smb://user:password@server/sharename
smb://workgroup/server/sharename
smb://server/sharename


On your Son's PC, I will assume that Windows Firewall is running, it is
configurable from the control panel, and it needs to be set up to allow it
file and printer sharing. In the contol panel double click on the
security center and then select the firewall, from there you can select
file and printer sharing. Make sure the scope is set up to only be the
local network, you don't want requests from the Internet to be making it
to his machine. To change the scope click the edit button with file and
printer sharing selected and you will be able to change the scope to the
local network. If he is running a different firewall I will assume that
is a little more knowledgable and he just needs to be allowing connections
from the local network on the following ports:

137 UDP
138 UDP
139 UDP,TCP
445 UDP,TCP


UDP means the port needs to be open to UDP requests and TCP means that it
needs to be open to TCP requests. Once the Mac is set up to connect to
print to the Windows machine is set up to share and allow connections you
should be able to remotely print.

>
Or do I really need a wireless printer?
>
> (When replying please bear in mind that I know nothing about
> PCs ... .
>
> Thanks.
>
> Leo.
>
 >> Stay informed about: Wireless printing with PC and Mac 

On Dec 20, 4:09 pm, El Diablo con Queso
wrote:

> UDP means the port needs to be open to UDP requests and TCP means that it
> needs to be open to TCP requests. Once the Mac is set up to connect to
> print to the Windows machine is set up to share and allow connections you
> should be able to remotely print.

Been away for a few days...

Tried all that but it still doesn't work. I wonder if there's not a
problem using the router to access the printer, could it possibly be
just set up to route connected computers to the internet and not allow
them to network between each other. It's a pretty cheap Belkin -
bottom of the range one. Is there any way of seeing the printer on the
network (if there is one) from my PowerBook?
 >> Stay informed about: Wireless printing with PC and Mac