Home printing solution

December 24, 2005 6:40 AM

Help me set up a printing system for the whole family...

For a while now I've had problems with our current set up for printing stuff out. We have a wireless network, and a printer connected to my Dads XP PC as he uses it most. The printer is shared on the network, but often has problems when I try to print from my PC (keeps printing the same thing over and over, or skips images and just prints txt in Word, gets the quality settings wrong etc etc) and I cant print from my iBook.

Im looking at getting an Epson Stylus Photo R300 with a Continious Ink Supply, and a wireless print server.

Hopefully this will allow me to print my high-quality glossy prints and discs, and my dad to print out his documents and work, without spending too much on ink.
(my dad prints mostly in B&W, and I print mostly in colour)

Questions:
1) Will this solve my problems?
2) Will the D-Link DP-311U print server play nice with my Netgear DG834G?
3) Will I be able to print from my iBook?
4) Is there a better/cheaper way?

posted by lemonfridge to Computers & Internet (4 answers total)

1) I would think so. It would bypass Windows printer sharing, which sounds like it could be the source of your problems. Another possibility is that your wireless network is suffering from connection drops and losing parts of the print job; but again, it may be that the print server could deal with this gracefully and Windows printer sharing can't.

2) As far as I know, the router should not affect your choice of print server.

3) I don't know. I know it's easy to set up network printing through a HP JetDirect on Ubuntu Linux, but that's not particularly helpful. Does anyone have experience with Macs and print servers?

4) Not that I can think of, assuming a potentially cheaper wired print server isn't an option.

I base my comments on my experience printing on an HP inkjet via an ancient Hp JetDirect print server from Windows XP and Ubuntu Linux. The network is both wired and wireless. The print server itself is wired only, as it predates even 100Mbps wired ethernet, let alone 802.11b.
posted by musicinmybrain at 9:49 AM on December 24, 2005

DLink's Firmware update page says Version 2.0 of the DP-311U's firmware supports Rendevous - Which should make OS X pretty straightforward, since your printer is supported.

(Personally, I'm likewise using a JetDirect on a similar setup to musicinmybrain - OS X prints to the Jet Direct fine.)
posted by Orb2069 at 1:56 PM on December 24, 2005

Similar problems in my house; just want to throw in that we're using an Airport Express for wireless printing, and it Just Works (tm) for our Macs, and has very easy setup for Windows clients.
posted by chota at 10:15 PM on December 24, 2005

installing Bonjour for Windows on my XP and 2000 machines made sharing a printer SOOOOOOOOOOOO easy. the windows download is on the right side of the page: http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/bonjour/

OS X has it built in so no need to fuss w/ anything.
posted by hummercash at 10:14 PM on December 25, 2005