bought non-wireless priinter by mistake

  • Thread starter Thread starter micky
  • Start date Start date
M

micky

My friend didn't think about wireless or laptops and bought a printer
without wireless. It connects ONLY by USB. It's too late to return
it.

a) I know you can disconnect a USB harddrive by just pulling the cord
out, or you risk losing data**, but what's the most damage you could do
just by unplugging a printer? Interrupt the job and have to print it
again? And not even that if your last print job has already printed?
Or if it had stopped with an error message? Maybe he can just
transfer the cable from the desktop to the laptop when he wants to
print.

b) Or he can leave the printer connected to his desktop computer and if
there were some sort of Y USB connector, maybe he could just plug the
laptop in to the other fork of the Y. The Y's are called hubs, but I
think of them as outgoing to more than one add-on device. Especially
powered hubs. Would it work to plug the common port of a hub into the
printer, one of the multiple ports into the desktop, and when needed
plug the laptop in one of the other mulitple ports. (I don't know what
words to use for common and mulitple. I mean input and output, but in
this case the data would be going the opposite direction.)

I'm interested in all this myself, so any answers for a PC are greatly
appreciated.

OTOH, he has a Mac. Does that make a difference?

Or maybe he can make it wireless.
c) I think the cheapest wireless print server I found online was 20
dollars if no one else bids. Used of course. Would anyone buy that, or
would you just buy a new wireless printer? If you're curious, here's
its ad.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/LevelOne-WP...97877?pt=US_Print_Servers&hash=item20f186d115
auction ends at 10:30 tonight Sunday EST

d) Hmmm. I have a USB equivalent of an internal wifi card, to receive
signals from the router. If it can receive internet signals from the
router, can it plug into a USB printer and make a printer accept,
printer text signals from the same router, coming from the local network
computer instead of the the DSL modem?
(I suppose not, or I'd have heard about it, but I don't know why it
wouldn't.)



**What if you absolutely know you haven't written to a USB hard drive
for the last 10 minutes. Is there a chance of losing data or damaging
the structure by just pulling out the USB cord, or by turning off t he
power to the external drive??

Thanks.
 
micky said:
My friend didn't think about wireless or laptops and bought a printer
without wireless. It connects ONLY by USB. It's too late to return
it.
Click to expand...

Since that printer was a bargain, now the friend
can buy two printers :-) One for each computer.

There is no reason for the printer to freak out,
if you move the USB connector. Make sure the
printer has returned to the home position,
before pulling a fast one on it.

They make USB sharing boxes, but those don't
give me a warm feeling, in terms of how long
they last. I have no experience with such things,
and I'd rather just move the USB connector. Metal
USB connectors are rated at 5000 insertion cycles.

Paul
 
My friend didn't think about wireless or laptops and bought a printer
without wireless. It connects ONLY by USB. It's too late to return
it.

a) I know you can disconnect a USB harddrive by just pulling the cord
out, or you risk losing data**, but what's the most damage you could do
just by unplugging a printer? Interrupt the job and have to print it
again? And not even that if your last print job has already printed?
Or if it had stopped with an error message? Maybe he can just
transfer the cable from the desktop to the laptop when he wants to
print.

b) Or he can leave the printer connected to his desktop computer and if
there were some sort of Y USB connector, maybe he could just plug the
laptop in to the other fork of the Y. The Y's are called hubs, but I
think of them as outgoing to more than one add-on device. Especially
powered hubs. Would it work to plug the common port of a hub into the
printer, one of the multiple ports into the desktop, and when needed
plug the laptop in one of the other mulitple ports. (I don't know what
words to use for common and mulitple. I mean input and output, but in
this case the data would be going the opposite direction.)

I'm interested in all this myself, so any answers for a PC are greatly
appreciated.

OTOH, he has a Mac. Does that make a difference?

Or maybe he can make it wireless.
c) I think the cheapest wireless print server I found online was 20
dollars if no one else bids. Used of course. Would anyone buy that, or
would you just buy a new wireless printer? If you're curious, here's
its ad.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/LevelOne-WP...97877?pt=US_Print_Servers&hash=item20f186d115
auction ends at 10:30 tonight Sunday EST

d) Hmmm. I have a USB equivalent of an internal wifi card, to receive
signals from the router. If it can receive internet signals from the
router, can it plug into a USB printer and make a printer accept,
printer text signals from the same router, coming from the local network
computer instead of the the DSL modem?
(I suppose not, or I'd have heard about it, but I don't know why it
wouldn't.)



**What if you absolutely know you haven't written to a USB hard drive
for the last 10 minutes. Is there a chance of losing data or damaging
the structure by just pulling out the USB cord, or by turning off t he
power to the external drive??

Thanks.
Click to expand...
It depends on the printer. If the printer is just a printer and not one
of the multi-function printer scanners, you may try this. (I have heard
that if the print server is not bidirectional the scanner will not work
as it feeds a data stream back to the computer, while the printer
accepts the data stream from the computer.)

I watched and found the cheapest wired print server I could find. It
was A D-Link DP-300U unit, One ethernet and one USB port.

I then hooked the print server to the LAN router with a standard LAN
cable, and the printer to the print server. With this arrangement, the
Print server appears on the Local Area network and I can print from any
computer on the LAN, wired or wireless, through the print server.


While the printer appears as a LAN printer you must have the printer
driver on each computer that uses the printer
 
My friend didn't think about wireless or laptops and bought a printer
without wireless. It connects ONLY by USB. It's too late to return
it.
Click to expand...
Could this be a job for a Raspberry Pi?
Anyone tried this?
I have been looking for a reason to buy one.
 
On 12/7/14 1:59 PM, micky wrote:

OTOH, he has a Mac. Does that make a difference?
Click to expand...

It shouldn't.

You didn't say which computer was the Mac. If it's the desktop, and
relatively new (mine is 5.5 years old), wireless is built-in, unlike
Windows desktops I've seen.

All of the solutions provided should work, but I networked my Windows
computers and this Mac, and attached the USB printer to the Mac. I have
a network printer now. I am not a wireless fan, so only my Win 7
netbook used wireless. When I wanted to print something from a Windows
computer, I just selected the printer, actually it was the default
printer, and printed. The downside in this type of scenario is the
computer that has the printer connected must be on. And possibly logged
in, I don't know for sure since the Mac was always on.



<snip>


--
Ken
Mac OS X 10.8.5
Firefox 25.0
Thunderbird 24.6.0
"My brain is like lightning, a quick flash
and it's gone!"
 
micky said:
OTOH, he has a Mac. Does that make a difference?
Click to expand...

Micky-

Two possibilities:

1. An Apple AirPort Extreme (WiFi router) has a USB port that can be
used with a USB printer. (An Apple Time Capsule is the same, but has a
Hard Drive that can be accessed over the network.)

2. You can install the printer on a Macintosh USB port and share it
over the network. Take a look at System Preferences, Sharing.

Fred
 
Good Guy said:
On 07/12/2014 20:59, micky wrote:
My friend didn't think about wireless or laptops and bought a
printer
without wireless. It connects ONLY by USB. It's too late to
return
it.
Click to expand...

(How much was the printer?)
[]
c) I think the cheapest wireless print server I found online was 20
dollars if no one else bids. Used of course. Would anyone buy
that, or
would you just buy a new wireless printer? If you're curious, []
All printers I have seen so far are wireless so god knows what it means
in your post.  However, some computers can be networked and accessed
Click to expand...

Well, you haven't looked too hard; there are still wireless-less (!)
printers about, though not too many in the range normally offered to
home users.
wirelessly so you need to tell us what exactly are you trying to do.
Click to expand...
[]
Yes, it depends why micky's friend wants to make the printer wireless:
is it just to avoid being tied to it, or does he want to use it from
multiple machines?
 
Fred said:
Micky-

Two possibilities:

1. An Apple AirPort Extreme (WiFi router) has a USB port that can be
used with a USB printer. (An Apple Time Capsule is the same, but has
a Hard Drive that can be accessed over the network.)
Click to expand...

Many routers now have USB ports, which can handle printers or usb hard drives.
 
On 12/7/14 1:59 PM, micky wrote:



It shouldn't.

You didn't say which computer was the Mac. If it's the desktop, and
Click to expand...

The desktop he has now is a Mac, and so old it won't even run the
printer. And recently he found files it wouldnt' download because it
was so old. Mac OS 10.4, I think. I forget what aniimal that is.
relatively new (mine is 5.5 years old), wireless is built-in, unlike
Click to expand...

Oh good. I think he bought a new Mac desktop 2 months ago but hasn't
had time to take it out of the box. Either the desktop or the printer,
he says, he's used two months of hte 12-month warranty and still doesn't
know if they work.

He keeps busy with his job and other worthwhile things. Often helping
other people, no less.
Windows desktops I've seen.


All of the solutions provided should work, but I networked my Windows
computers and this Mac, and attached the USB printer to the Mac. I have
a network printer now. I am not a wireless fan, so only my Win 7
netbook used wireless. When I wanted to print something from a Windows
computer, I just selected the printer, actually it was the default
printer, and printed. The downside in this type of scenario is the
computer that has the printer connected must be on.
Click to expand...

He may leave his desktop on all the time. I was surprissed when I heard
that.
And possibly logged
in, I don't know for sure since the Mac was always on.
Click to expand...

When I met him he had no computer at all, years after everyone else did.
Now he has a Mac that's gotten too old, one that's new but in the box,
and an Acer netbook running XP that I'm sure would work with the new
printer, but he doesn't use much. Oh, and an Ipad. And IIUC, he has
an Apple laptop still in the box. But he doesn't waste money in any
other way, and even this is small compared to most people.
I ended up buying the wireless print server that no one else bid on, for
15 + 6 dolllars. It 's going to take months his new stuff running,
but this is a start.

The wireless print server that I didn't understand, because it was a
card that went into the printer, rreally did go into the printer. It
was a big printer with fancy options, like for an office.

I'm going to read over all the answers again and think about how they
apply to me and to him, and his landlady who sometimes depends on me to
fix her computer, and another family with 4 laptops, one for each of
them who only needed me twice iirc in several years.


Thank you and everyone else for the help.


<snip>
 
Bob F said:
Many routers now have USB ports, which can handle printers or usb hard drives.
Click to expand...
However I've found that although they work they can be rather slow,
routers don't have fast/powerful processors usually and the printer
USB will be low on priority. Printing nowadays can involve firing
quite a lot of data at the printer.

I found that printing via the USB port on my Draytek Vigor 2820n (not
by any means a basic router) was very slow even compared with printing
using a Raspberry Pi as the network -> USB link. (I have an only HP
1320 printer that is parallel and USB only)
 
The desktop he has now is a Mac, and so old it won't even run the
printer. And recently he found files it wouldnt' download because it
was so old. Mac OS 10.4, I think. I forget what aniimal that is.
Click to expand...

Tiger. This iMac came with 10.5, Leopard. It's also the first Mac I've
ever bought.
Oh good. I think he bought a new Mac desktop 2 months ago but hasn't
had time to take it out of the box. Either the desktop or the printer,
he says, he's used two months of hte 12-month warranty and still doesn't
know if they work.

He keeps busy with his job and other worthwhile things. Often helping
other people, no less.


He may leave his desktop on all the time. I was surprissed when I heard
that.


When I met him he had no computer at all, years after everyone else did.
Now he has a Mac that's gotten too old, one that's new but in the box,
and an Acer netbook running XP that I'm sure would work with the new
printer, but he doesn't use much. Oh, and an Ipad. And IIUC, he has
an Apple laptop still in the box. But he doesn't waste money in any
other way, and even this is small compared to most people.
Click to expand...

If he has a new Mac desktop, a new Mac laptop, and an iPad, why bother
with the old stuff? It seems a waste of time to me.

Back when my Mac was new, I took it to my inlaws to show them a Mac.
They are all Windows users. Their son brought his HP XP laptop. It
took me about 10 minutes to get connected to their network. It took
their son 3 hours to get his XP laptop connected.

No joke.

IMO, you guys are wasting your time with getting the old equipment to
work together. If you set up the new stuff, and if he has an Apple
account, all three Apple products should talk to each other without a
hitch. For Apple apps, lets say the notepad, if you enter something
into the notepad app on the desktop, in a couple of minutes the data you
entered will be downloaded to the laptop and iPad. And vice-versa.

Caveat... The age and model of the iPad may be an issue. I'm not a big
Apple user, no iPad, no iPhone, no iPod, etc. I don't buy a product
because it's Apple, I buy what fits my needs/desires/wants. My tablet
is a Google Nexus 7, which is Android. :-)
I ended up buying the wireless print server that no one else bid on, for
15 + 6 dolllars. It 's going to take months his new stuff running,
but this is a start.
Click to expand...

?????? The last sentence isn't making any sense to me. It shouldn't
take much time at all to get the new stuff running, if it's all Apple.
Unless the problem is one of simply getting together to do it. said:
The wireless print server that I didn't understand, because it was a
card that went into the printer, rreally did go into the printer. It
was a big printer with fancy options, like for an office.

I'm going to read over all the answers again and think about how they
apply to me and to him, and his landlady who sometimes depends on me to
fix her computer, and another family with 4 laptops, one for each of
them who only needed me twice iirc in several years.


Thank you and everyone else for the help.


<snip>
Click to expand...


--
Ken
Mac OS X 10.8.5
Firefox 33.1
Thunderbird 31.0
"My brain is like lightning, a quick flash
and it's gone!"
 
However I've found that although they work they can be rather slow,
routers don't have fast/powerful processors usually and the printer
USB will be low on priority. Printing nowadays can involve firing
quite a lot of data at the printer.

I found that printing via the USB port on my Draytek Vigor 2820n (not
by any means a basic router) was very slow even compared with printing
using a Raspberry Pi as the network -> USB link. (I have an only HP
1320 printer that is parallel and USB only)
Click to expand...

The best processor I could find in a modern router, was a
1GHz ARM in the 802.11ac class ones. Which is a bit better
than a stock PI at 700MHz.

Paul
 
?????? The last sentence isn't making any sense to me. It shouldn't
take much time at all to get the new stuff running, if it's all Apple.
Unless the problem is one of simply getting together to do it. <G>
Click to expand...
If you have the security code for the network there is no need to take
that long for any computer.

I have a mixed LAN Windows 8.1 and Windows XP, On Sunday my son in law
came with his new PC and it tool longer to give him the characters in
the pass code to the LAN than it did to connect.

I think in your comments there may be a slight Mac bias.
 
If you have the security code for the network there is no need to take
that long for any computer.
Click to expand...

With today's computers, agreed. But the 3 hr. issue with my nephew's
computer, one of 3 or 4 he brought to his parent's house, is accurate.
I sat there and watched him try to get it to connect, and never let him
live it down. (Actually, I went and watched TV while he worked at it.
LOL) I think it took him 5-10 minutes for the others, and that was
longer than it took this Mac to connect.

At the time, he was a Windows fanboi, nothing was ever going to be
better. He's mellowed a lot since then.

But keep this in perspective, at the time Win 7 was new, and MS has
improved in this area.
I have a mixed LAN Windows 8.1 and Windows XP, On Sunday my son in law
came with his new PC and it tool longer to give him the characters in
the pass code to the LAN than it did to connect.
Click to expand...

As I just said, MS has improved.
I think in your comments there may be a slight Mac bias.
Click to expand...

There's good and bad about both systems. I found a couple of things
about the Mac I didn't like the first day I had it. For instance,
there's no "Move" option when doing file management. It's buried in
there, but you have to use Terminal to do it. Nothing in the UI allows
this. I don't know if Apple has brought it back.

The lines you quoted had nothing to do with comparing the systems, just
noting that if they are working with two new Apple units, there won't be
any problem. It's just like using Homegroup in Win 7, except a tad
easier, especially if you have an Apple account. In this case, you
don't even need a home network.

Don't know if Homegroup is in 8 or not, I did my network the old
fashioned way here, since Homegroup is limited in the OS systems it will
work with.

It's not as easy to network a Mac to a PC as it should be, and it's
Apple's fault, not MS's. Maybe that's been corrected in Mavericks
and/or Yosemite, I don't know. And from what I've learned, Apple has
removed a couple of things from OS X that makes file management across a
network hard to accomplish. I don't know why, but that's another thing
I don't like.

If there are two new Apple computers, I don't understand trying to get
Tiger and XP to work with the printer, unless they just want to make it
work for whatever reason. Something I've been known to do.

--
Ken
Mac OS X 10.8.5
Firefox 33.1
Thunderbird 31.0
"My brain is like lightning, a quick flash
and it's gone!"
 
With today's computers, agreed. But the 3 hr. issue with my nephew's
computer, one of 3 or 4 he brought to his parent's house, is accurate. I
sat there and watched him try to get it to connect, and never let him
live it down. (Actually, I went and watched TV while he worked at it.
LOL) I think it took him 5-10 minutes for the others, and that was
longer than it took this Mac to connect.

At the time, he was a Windows fanboi, nothing was ever going to be
better. He's mellowed a lot since then.

But keep this in perspective, at the time Win 7 was new, and MS has
improved in this area.


As I just said, MS has improved.


There's good and bad about both systems. I found a couple of things
about the Mac I didn't like the first day I had it. For instance,
there's no "Move" option when doing file management. It's buried in
there, but you have to use Terminal to do it. Nothing in the UI allows
this. I don't know if Apple has brought it back.

The lines you quoted had nothing to do with comparing the systems, just
noting that if they are working with two new Apple units, there won't be
any problem. It's just like using Homegroup in Win 7, except a tad
easier, especially if you have an Apple account. In this case, you
don't even need a home network.

Don't know if Homegroup is in 8 or not, I did my network the old
fashioned way here, since Homegroup is limited in the OS systems it will
work with.

It's not as easy to network a Mac to a PC as it should be, and it's
Apple's fault, not MS's. Maybe that's been corrected in Mavericks
and/or Yosemite, I don't know. And from what I've learned, Apple has
removed a couple of things from OS X that makes file management across a
network hard to accomplish. I don't know why, but that's another thing
I don't like.

If there are two new Apple computers, I don't understand trying to get
Tiger and XP to work with the printer, unless they just want to make it
work for whatever reason. Something I've been known to do.
Click to expand...
Windows 8 has the Homegroup option, but I did not use it. I hooked the
Windows 8 unit into the LAN as a standalone computer that shared it
resources with the LAN. This removes Windows 8's control of the LAN.

Once I had Windows 8 up and running, I made the LAN connection through
the Network Connection Pane that pops up on the right side of the
desktop. I then went to the File explorer and shade those resources
that I wanted shared. I made sure that the Firewall permitted those
resources to access the LAN.

PS. I have not seen the Metro/Modern interface since I upgraded from
Windows 8 to Windows 8.1, and access all computer functions from the MS
Icon on the desktop toolbar.
 
Tiger. This iMac came with 10.5, Leopard. It's also the first Mac I've
ever bought.


If he has a new Mac desktop, a new Mac laptop, and an iPad, why bother
with the old stuff? It seems a waste of time to me.
Click to expand...

See below.
Back when my Mac was new, I took it to my inlaws to show them a Mac.
They are all Windows users. Their son brought his HP XP laptop. It
took me about 10 minutes to get connected to their network. It took
their son 3 hours to get his XP laptop connected.

No joke.
Click to expand...

I don't know if this is related. I took an old IBM Thinkpad on a car
trip to Dallas and most motels had a password I was supposed to enter.
I could almost never get it to work if there was a passwords. This was
running winME!

Now like my friend I have an Acer netbook running XP and it connects
just fine. The engine failed near Ashville, N.C and if I didn't have a
computer to shop for another car, I would have had to go buy one.
IMO, you guys are wasting your time with getting the old equipment to
work together.
Click to expand...

No, I was talking about getting the new equipment installed and working.
He wants wireless so he can print easily from the laptop, wherever he is
at the time. I"m sorry I was confusing.
If you set up the new stuff, and if he has an Apple
account, all three Apple products should talk to each other without a
hitch. For Apple apps, lets say the notepad, if you enter something
into the notepad app on the desktop, in a couple of minutes the data you
entered will be downloaded to the laptop and iPad. And vice-versa.

Caveat... The age and model of the iPad may be an issue. I'm not a big
Apple user, no iPad, no iPhone, no iPod, etc. I don't buy a product
because it's Apple, I buy what fits my needs/desires/wants. My tablet
is a Google Nexus 7, which is Android. :-)


?????? The last sentence isn't making any sense to me. It shouldn't
take much time at all to get the new stuff running, if it's all Apple.
Click to expand...

It will because it's still in the box. It's been in the box for 2
months and will remain there who knows how long.
Unless the problem is one of simply getting together to do it. <G>
Click to expand...

Yeah, that's it.
 
If there are two new Apple computers, I don't understand trying to get
Tiger and XP to work with the printer, unless they just want to make it
work for whatever reason. Something I've been known to do.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure if he has an apple laptop. I lost track of his story, and
of course whatever he said, he may have returned it after that, if he
even bought one. (My own memory isn't so hot these days either.)

The only laptop I know he's used is the PC. I had him convinced that it
wouldn't be much effort to get out of bed and plug the rpinter into it
-- that was the first part of my OP, if just pulling the USB plug could
do any harm -- but he also though 21 dollars for the print server was
worth it.
 
I'm not sure if he has an apple laptop. I lost track of his story, and
of course whatever he said, he may have returned it after that, if he
even bought one. (My own memory isn't so hot these days either.)
Click to expand...

I know how this goes, I've given up trying to keep track of what goes on
with my inlaws systems. It's a case where the old adage (Too many cooks
spoil the pot.) is a perfect fit.
The only laptop I know he's used is the PC. I had him convinced that it
wouldn't be much effort to get out of bed and plug the rpinter into it
-- that was the first part of my OP, if just pulling the USB plug could
do any harm -- but he also though 21 dollars for the print server was
worth it.
Click to expand...

As long as he doesn't want to share files without doing a modern day
version of sneakernet, it sounds like the print server is a great
solution for him.


--
Ken
Mac OS X 10.8.5
Firefox 33.1
Thunderbird 31.0
"My brain is like lightning, a quick flash
and it's gone!"
 
See below.


I don't know if this is related. I took an old IBM Thinkpad on a car
trip to Dallas and most motels had a password I was supposed to enter.
I could almost never get it to work if there was a passwords. This was
running winME!

Now like my friend I have an Acer netbook running XP and it connects
just fine. The engine failed near Ashville, N.C and if I didn't have a
computer to shop for another car, I would have had to go buy one.
Click to expand...

In this case, and my nephew's case, hardware may also be part of the
problem.

I think this is a downside of the "open" way MS has done things, some
thing no one seems to talk about. Someone puts out an accessory card
that's somehow just a little bit different than what the programming
expects, and the system fails. But Apple's "walled garden" approach
seems to keep this to a minimum.

I was once rebuilding a Gateway desktop to give away, XP for the OS.
After installing OS updates, the computer would not shut down. Tracked
the issue down to a particular high security update. Leave it out,
worked fine. MS offered free tech support for this update, and I kept
escalating it up the food chain until I was dealing with MS engineers in
New Delhi, India, who finally gave up on the problem.

I'm no trained tech, but I sat and watched how the computer reacted, and
a couple weeks later I said to myself "I wonder what would happen
if.......") I put in an older Ethernet card, and everything worked fine.
No, I was talking about getting the new equipment installed and working.
He wants wireless so he can print easily from the laptop, wherever he is
at the time. I"m sorry I was confusing.
Click to expand...

Sorry here too, I should have said "getting the old equipment to work
together with the new printer.
It will because it's still in the box. It's been in the box for 2
months and will remain there who knows how long.
Click to expand...

And it will depend on how familiar you are with the Mac way of doing
things, too.
Yeah, that's it.
Click to expand...


--
Ken
Mac OS X 10.8.5
Firefox 33.1
Thunderbird 31.0
"My brain is like lightning, a quick flash
and it's gone!"
 
Back
Top