OT: Wireless printers

First of all apologies for being off topic. If I purchased a wireless
printer, would that allow me to print from a wireless enabled laptop
directly? Looking around it appears the wireless printers are to connect to
networks. In my situation, there is no network, just want the printer in
one location and have the ability to print to it from a wireless enabled
laptop.

Thanks

Slider wrote:
> First of all apologies for being off topic. If I purchased a wireless
> printer, would that allow me to print from a wireless enabled laptop
> directly? Looking around it appears the wireless printers are to connect to
> networks. In my situation, there is no network, just want the printer in
> one location and have the ability to print to it from a wireless enabled
> laptop.
>
> Thanks
>
>
I think that should work..not really sure though. A wireless hub isn't a
huge expense though.

"Slider" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:gogv3t$tfd$(E-Mail Removed)...
> First of all apologies for being off topic. If I purchased a wireless
> printer, would that allow me to print from a wireless enabled laptop
> directly? Looking around it appears the wireless printers are to connect
> to networks. In my situation, there is no network, just want the printer
> in one location and have the ability to print to it from a wireless
> enabled laptop.
>
> Thanks

Just to be 101% sure about what you have,
Your laptop is wireless, but you currently connect to the internet
with a wired connection to it?

--
Graham.

%Profound_observation%

"Slider" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:gogv3t$tfd$(E-Mail Removed)...
> First of all apologies for being off topic. If I purchased a wireless
> printer, would that allow me to print from a wireless enabled laptop
> directly? Looking around it appears the wireless printers are to connect
> to networks. In my situation, there is no network, just want the printer
> in one location and have the ability to print to it from a wireless
> enabled laptop.

What we have is a 'network' printer wired to the wireless router - both are
in 'Harry Potter' (the cupboard under the stairs)
All laptops in the house can then print wirelessly, as long as the printer
drivers are installed on the laptop.


--
J B

>> First of all apologies for being off topic. If I purchased a wireless
>> printer, would that allow me to print from a wireless enabled laptop
>> directly? Looking around it appears the wireless printers are to connect
>> to networks. In my situation, there is no network, just want the printer
>> in one location and have the ability to print to it from a wireless
>> enabled laptop.
>
> What we have is a 'network' printer wired to the wireless router - both
> are in 'Harry Potter' (the cupboard under the stairs)
> All laptops in the house can then print wirelessly, as long as the printer
> drivers are installed on the laptop.

In the house where I grew up the cupboard under the stairs was called
the pantry ,which was odd because no food or kitchen utensils
were ever stored their. Just the electricity meter and coats.

Pretentious, or what?

--
Graham.

%Profound_observation%

"Graham." <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:gohjse$2oe$(E-Mail Removed)...
>
>>> First of all apologies for being off topic. If I purchased a wireless
>>> printer, would that allow me to print from a wireless enabled laptop
>>> directly? Looking around it appears the wireless printers are to
>>> connect to networks. In my situation, there is no network, just want
>>> the printer in one location and have the ability to print to it from a
>>> wireless enabled laptop.
>>
>> What we have is a 'network' printer wired to the wireless router - both
>> are in 'Harry Potter' (the cupboard under the stairs)
>> All laptops in the house can then print wirelessly, as long as the
>> printer drivers are installed on the laptop.
>
> In the house where I grew up the cupboard under the stairs was called
> the pantry ,which was odd because no food or kitchen utensils
> were ever stored their. Just the electricity meter and coats.
>
> Pretentious, or what?
>
> --
> Graham.
>
> %Profound_observation%
>

Thanks for all the replies. Some more detail.

No wireless router. Internet connection will be direct connection to a
phone line. Yes dial up internet. No broadband yet.

Slider wrote:
> "Graham." <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
> news:gohjse$2oe$(E-Mail Removed)...
>>
>>>> First of all apologies for being off topic. If I purchased a
>>>> wireless printer, would that allow me to print from a wireless
>>>> enabled laptop directly? Looking around it appears the wireless
>>>> printers are to connect to networks. In my situation, there is no
>>>> network, just want the printer in one location and have the
>>>> ability to print to it from a wireless enabled laptop.
>>>
>>> What we have is a 'network' printer wired to the wireless router -
>>> both are in 'Harry Potter' (the cupboard under the stairs)
>>> All laptops in the house can then print wirelessly, as long as the
>>> printer drivers are installed on the laptop.
>>
>> In the house where I grew up the cupboard under the stairs was called
>> the pantry ,which was odd because no food or kitchen utensils
>> were ever stored their. Just the electricity meter and coats.
>>
>> Pretentious, or what?
>>
>> --
>> Graham.
>>
>> %Profound_observation%
>>
>
> Thanks for all the replies. Some more detail.
>
> No wireless router. Internet connection will be direct connection to
> a phone line. Yes dial up internet. No broadband yet.

Do you have a particular printer in mind?

I know that the last wireless HP printer I saw did work in Ad-Hox mode, so
would do what you want.

Before you buy it, make sure it does indeed work in ad-hoc mode, otherwise
you will need to purchase a wireless router for it to work.

"Toby" <postmaster@127.0.0.1> wrote in message
news:49ad1f0e$0$509$(E-Mail Removed)...
> Slider wrote:
>> "Graham." <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
>> news:gohjse$2oe$(E-Mail Removed)...
>>>
>>>>> First of all apologies for being off topic. If I purchased a
>>>>> wireless printer, would that allow me to print from a wireless
>>>>> enabled laptop directly? Looking around it appears the wireless
>>>>> printers are to connect to networks. In my situation, there is no
>>>>> network, just want the printer in one location and have the
>>>>> ability to print to it from a wireless enabled laptop.
>>>>
>>>> What we have is a 'network' printer wired to the wireless router -
>>>> both are in 'Harry Potter' (the cupboard under the stairs)
>>>> All laptops in the house can then print wirelessly, as long as the
>>>> printer drivers are installed on the laptop.
>>>
>>> In the house where I grew up the cupboard under the stairs was called
>>> the pantry ,which was odd because no food or kitchen utensils
>>> were ever stored their. Just the electricity meter and coats.
>>>
>>> Pretentious, or what?
>>>
>>> --
>>> Graham.
>>>
>>> %Profound_observation%
>>>
>>
>> Thanks for all the replies. Some more detail.
>>
>> No wireless router. Internet connection will be direct connection to
>> a phone line. Yes dial up internet. No broadband yet.
>
> Do you have a particular printer in mind?
>
> I know that the last wireless HP printer I saw did work in Ad-Hox mode, so
> would do what you want.
>
> Before you buy it, make sure it does indeed work in ad-hoc mode, otherwise
> you will need to purchase a wireless router for it to work.

No printers in mind, so I am open to any recommendations.

[snip]
>>
>> Do you have a particular printer in mind?
>>
>> I know that the last wireless HP printer I saw did work in Ad-Hox mode,
>> so would do what you want.
>>
>> Before you buy it, make sure it does indeed work in ad-hoc mode,
>> otherwise you will need to purchase a wireless router for it to work.
>
> No printers in mind, so I am open to any recommendations.

I helped a friend install an HP Officejet J4680 printer yesterday.

This model has a USB connector, and wireless facility, but no RJ45 connector
for Ethernet. You can either use its front panel to set the wireless
parameters, or connect the USB cable and navigate through the menu on the
installation CD. It has a wireless enable button with a blue light in it.

My friend had already installed the driver for use with the USB connection,
so the CD is used (from the already-installed management program) to run the
component that configures the wireless settings in the printer. It is
configured to get its IP address from the DHCP server available through the
wireless router. The printer driver itself uses the standard TCP/IP port in
raw mode; but the installer only finds the printer's IP address while the
USB cable is connected.

If the router and printer are powered off at any time then when next powered
on the printer might get a different IP address; printing would then fail
because the port configuration in the driver would be wrong. So I altered
the printer configuration to have a static IP address - easy to do from the
built-in web page (but obviously possible from the printer's control panel).
In an ideal world the router could be configured to bind an IP to the
printers MAC address - not all routers can do this. (The same would apply
if the printer were connected to the router using an ethernet cable.)

I then installed the driver on a wirelessly connected laptop. The installer
could not find the printer on the network and had to be told the printer's
IP address in an advanced dialog. Previous experience where a computer and
an HP printer are both connected to a router using ethernet cable is that
the network install process does find the printer - so I supect there is
some protocol used by the installer that is not carried over the wiereless
network.

In common with all HP printers, the install takes an inordinately long time
because there seems to be so much crap copied from the CD. When it got to
the stage of having to be told the printer's IP address it could not find
it. Referring to the PC where the driver had been installed and shown to
work, I found that it could not even ping the printer's IP address. It was
necesary to disable and re-enable the wireless using the buttonon the front
of the printer. This despite the fact that the blue light was on,
suggesting that the wireless was working. I haven't been able to find
anything about a wireless timeout in the printer manual, so it's possible
that this is a fault in the printer. If it is done by design it does seem
particularly perverse!

So it's a bit of a minefield!

--
Graham J

Graham J wrote:

> In common with all HP printers, the install takes an inordinately long
> time because there seems to be so much crap copied from the CD.

Seconded. What in the name of suffering fuck is "HP Customer Experience
Enhancements" supposed to be? They must recognise some of the pain they're
causing as some models have a "full feature" and "basic feature" driver
download, with an order of magnitude difference in size between the two.

And just how hard can it be for them to put a label with the MAC address on
their network printers?

--
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