2 laptops, 1 PC and a Printer......

[.Mark]

Bluetooth?
I'm fed up with moving the flippin' printer cable between machines and am guessing Bluetooth may be the answer, but not knowing much about it I'm not sure.

At a guess I need 4 'dongles', one for each machine. Ah. Problem rears it's head as I type, printer only has a parallel port, is there anyway this could work?

Range is not a problem as all machines are within 10 metres of each other and I'm looking for a reletively cheap solution here.

TIA.

[danielson]

hi mate what you need is 4-1 auto switch box. someone like belkin or fellowes will do them..problem sorted and cheap to!

[.Mark]

danielson said:

hi mate what you need is 4-1 auto switch box. someone like belkin or fellowes will do them..problem sorted and cheap to!

Cheers, but doesn't that still require cables? I was hoping to be cable free as I don't always sit in the same place with the laptop.

[whoozit]

Wireless network? That would allow you to print from any of the machines as well as share the internet connection. I've recently bought a print server cartridge that sits on the parallel port and is connected to the network.

[.Mark]

whoozit said:

Wireless network? That would allow you to print from any of the machines as well as share the internet connection. I've recently bought a print server cartridge that sits on the parallel port and is connected to the network.

OK, sounds good.

Tell me more, what do I need and how much?

[sybaseian]

2 x PCIMCIA wifi cards (for laptops), 1 x PCI wifi card (for PC), connect printer to PC and then setup a home network. All wifi cards need to be in ad-hoc mode rather than access point mode (Unless you buy a wireless access point).

I have 2 laptops, 1 PDA, 1 PC and a printer setup in a wireless network. I bought a netgear DG824M ADSL Modem/Firewall/Router/Switch/Wireless Access point and setup a home network. The laptops and PDA all have PCMCIA wifi cards, the PC has a PCI ethernet card rather than a PCI wifi card as it's only two feet from the DG824M and it comes with a CAT5 ethernet cable.

The DG824M is accessed via a web interface, just put the connection details in and my IP address. Everything else is behind the built-in firewall, just need to set-up the PC's to accept that the DHCP server is the DG824M and then make sure that you are all in the same network group - ie, MSHOME (by default) or another choice.

Took me just over 1 hour to set everything up, including installing the PCI ethernet card on the PC.

I started off with a couple of wifi cards, between a laptop and a PDA in ad-hoc mode. It's much better now with the setup I have because I can share printers, files, etc much easier and more reliably which is better for replicated databases.

[sybaseian]

you can get cheap PCMCIA cards, etc from ebay......

[.Mark]

Cheers sybaseian,

Well the modem is a USB jobbie which connects to my work laptop so the other laptop and PC could connect to the net via that.
The printer is connected to the PC so that would have to be switched on and set up as a printer server for the laptops to print?

Hmmm....I might even understand this!

[_DJ_]

I think I've got a decent ethernet print server (little hardware box to connect the printer to a network) at the bottom of one of my junk boxes which I'd exchange for a few beers + postage if needs be.
It'd be useful if you got the wireless network + access point (as you could plug it in with a crossover cable then use the printer without having to have another machine turned on).

DJ

[puggit]

Forget bluetooth - WAY too slow!

[.Mark]

_DJ_ said:

I think I've got a decent ethernet print server (little hardware box to connect the printer to a network) at the bottom of one of my junk boxes which I'd exchange for a few beers + postage if needs be. It'd be useful if you got the wireless network + access point (as you could plug it in with a crossover cable then use the printer without having to have another machine turned on). DJ

Cheers DJ, I'll keep that in mind.

[sybaseian]

.Mark said:

Cheers sybaseian, Well the modem is a USB jobbie which connects to my work laptop so the other laptop and PC could connect to the net via that. The printer is connected to the PC so that would have to be switched on and set up as a printer server for the laptops to print? Hmmm....I might even understand this!

In my setup, the printer (combined Fax/Printer/Scanner) is connected to the PC. It's just a case of sharing the printer or looking for a printer on the network when the PC is switched on(on XP, don't remember if it's the same on other MS OSs).

The printer only has a USB connection, but I haven't got round to buying a USB printer server yet.

[sybaseian]

If you go down the wifi route, there are a few different flavours/speeds.

A, B and G are the most popular.

A = 2Mps
B = 11Mps
G = 56Mps

I have 11Mps, which is more than adequate for surfing and sharing info between computers. The only limit is ADSL connection speed isn't fast enough to put more than 5% loading on my network. It's also much cheaper than the latest 56Mps gear as well

[sybaseian]

.Mark said:

danielson said: hi mate what you need is 4-1 auto switch box. someone like belkin or fellowes will do them..problem sorted and cheap to! Cheers, but doesn't that still require cables? I was hoping to be cable free as I don't always sit in the same place with the laptop.

I have been know to sit in the garden with the PDA and a wifi card PH'ing or dialed into to the work networks sorting out database problems while having a few beers - no problems with range......

[billb]

if u really wanna know whats what in wirless go to the wireless show today in london its free and i'm going today on a jolly

www.enterprisewirelesstechnology.com