Wireless Ethernet and USB print server?

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Not having any real world experience thought I would pose the question here

Currently my PC has an Orange Livebox connected via ethernet and I have wireless access to my laptops.

What I want to do is have a wirelss connection for 2 printers - Canon Pixma and HP B9180. The Canon has USB and IEEE-1284 Parallel Port and the HP9180 has a USB and Ethernet port.

I think that the easy way to do this would be to purchase a wireless print server and connect both printers via usb. Not to worried about the Canon as I am happy to use the usb. But for the HP the preference would be to use the Ethernet port (Peer-to-peer networking is not supported)as it has an embedded web server which allows full communication to the printer status etc.

At the moment have not delved too deeply into the subject and only found a few wireless print servers offering usb connection only.

Any suggestions/recommendations or alternatives appreciated - although must say that I have an aversion (unreasonable maybe?) to Belkin products :LOL:
 
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Why connect the hp via usb to a print server when it has a print server already built in? All you need to do is connect it to your livebox or get the netgear w/printer server and plug it into one of the ethernet ports.
 
Thanks for your replies guys

The reason I did not want to connect directly to the livebox is that the liveprinter connection is USB port and information I have is that while it works I will loose some of the communication features with the printer such as monitoring ink levels etc. As I am considering placing both printers in another room to the PC it will be important to be able to monitor printer functions at the PC.

Therefore it looks like the Netgear solution favourite at the moment.

Now found a potential issue that may force me down one route i.e. according to the HP manual networking with 64bit systems is not supported :rolleyes: . As I currently run a system with Windows 7 64bit and XP 32 bit and need to access both printers from this looks like I may have to use USB for both printers - unless HP have updated. So once again the Netgear solution should cover either option.
 
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HP appear to have released 64-bit drivers for the B9180.

However, be aware that Netgear device only supports WEP and WPA. WEP is insecure and should not be used, WPA should be avoided in favour of WPA2.
 
The HP will not need a print server since it already has one built in. It’s the canon that will need one.


HP appear to have released 64-bit drivers for the B9180.

However, be aware that Netgear device only supports WEP and WPA. WEP is insecure and should not be used, WPA should be avoided in favour of WPA2.
What is wrong with WPA???
 
There is nothing wrong with WPA-AES!

Both WPA-AES and WPA2-AES currently only can be cracked by brute force.
 
There is nothing wrong with WPA-AES!

Both WPA-AES and WPA2-AES currently only can be cracked by brute force.

Except as I already stated, it is optional. Many devices only support TKIP, which is not secure. WPA2 is superior to WPA-AES anyway.

Why pay money to lazy companies who won't update their equipment to support WPA2?
 
Not all devices can support WPA2. I agree that AES is auto selected in WPA2 (which is good) but not with WPA but that does not mean WPA is not any good.

Moving to WPA2 is not a simple process.

They might update it or can't update it due to the hardware used.
 
Not all devices can support WPA2. I agree that AES is auto selected in WPA2 but not with WPA but that does not mean WPA is not any good.

Moving to WPA2 is not a simple process.

They might update it or can't update it due to the hardware used.

AES isn't auto selected for WPA2, it is a hard requirement. It is not a requirement for a WPA device to support AES. If it doesn't support WPA2, it will almost certainly not support WPA-AES.

It has nearly six years since 802.11i was standardised and WPA2 made available. If they haven't updated the hardware to support it by now, they won't.
 
That’s what I meant. Just because it’s not a requirement does not mean they doesn't stop them adding AES support.
 
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