Marcus L. Rowland (ffutures) wrote,
Marcus L. Rowland
ffutures

More superfluous technology

I've been vaguely thinking about networking my A3 printer, but got a bit put off by the price of print servers, since I was essentially shopping for something I may never need to use; 90% of my printing is done from the main computer, and everything I do on the other computers is probably going to use A4 paper and the existing network laser. While you can get a no-name USB server for £14-ish (Hong Kong vendor) there's not really much comeback if it doesn't work. But I was looking at Gumtree yesterday, as one does, and noticed someone local selling an HP Wireless G print server - for a fiver! Apparently a business bought it but never used it. So I phoned last night and collected it today, and it does more or less what it says on the tin - connects any computer running their server program to the printer.

So I can now print to it from my PC and my iBook. What I can't do, alas, is print from my ipad. Can't find any printer utility that supports it, including HP's own. I have the same problem with the Ricoh network laser. This is a little disappointing, but I think I'll live. Haven't tested Linux yet, but I suspect that may also be disappointing.

Not entirely sure if I'll want to keep this; I could really just leave the A3 printer plugged into my PC, and use the PC to share it on the network, or save documents to my network drive or dropbox and print them from the PC. Or swap the cable to whichever computer wants to print. I think the decision will largely depend on whether or not I can get it to work with the iPad.

So - this is described as an HP Wireless G USB Print server, 2101 nw, the printer is an Officejet K7100

Does anyone know anything about it, or have any suggestions for using it with iPad etc.?

later - getting nowhere fast, I've decided to go back to my original plan and use the printer on the main PC, and either transfer files or swap cables if I want to print from another computer. It's simpler, and fits in better with keeping the ink cartridges out unless it's actually needed.
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