This weekend I helped my niece and her roommate move into their new apartment. One of the things they needed done was setting up their internet connection. Their building provides them with “free” internet access but it’s simply a DSL modem without WiFi, therefore it’s up to the tenant to install a wireless router. Along with setting up WiFi they also needed to share a printer between their computers.
I explained to my niece that she had a few options for making it all hang together. One option is to buy a less expensive wireless router, attach the printer to one of their computers and share it out to the other one. This seems reasonable but what if the computer attached to the printer is gone? Maybe her roommate brought it to a class or took it her parent’s place. The next option was to again buy the less expensive wireless router and simply plug the USB cable into the printer whenever one or the other needed to print.
In the end it was decided that swapping cables was a bit of a hassle as well and with that I presented the third option of getting a wireless router that also had the ability to share a printer. This device is indeed a bit more expensive but the expense was deemed worth it because it would allow either of them to print without having to worry about if the other computer was available and on or trying to figure out where to set the laptop so it wouldn’t fall while swapping cables.
Being the Apple fan that I am I naturally selected Apple’s AirPort Express for the job. Among other things, this tiny little unit will provide internet access to a number of computers as well as share a USB based printer. Since both girls are also Mac users setup was relatively easy. Plug the AirPort Express into the wall, attach a network cable from the DSL modem to the ethernet port on the AirPort Express, attach the USB cable from the printer to the AirPort Express and then connect each laptop to the AirPort Express’s default wireless network name. From there I used Apple’s built in AirPort Utility to configure the AirPort Express’s security settings and last I added the printer to both laptops using Printer & Fax preference pane located in System Preferences. Adding the printer is simple because the AirPort Express advertises the printer on the network and the Mac immediately sees it as an available printer.
Windows users can also take advantage of easy it is to add a printer connected to an AirPort Express by downloading and installing this utility from Apple.
Dustin Rue