MS/OSX printer sharing v a print server

[packman 0]

I currently operate two USB colour printers and a parallel-ported HP Laserjet on my PC. Late next year, I plan to obtain a Mac and add that to the (wired) home Ethernet network that the PC and my Internet router shares. I've been wondering how best to share the printers between the PC and the Mac.

 

The PC runs WinXP and the Mac will be running OSX Tiger or Leopard.

 

Now, whilst the HP Laserjet has only a parallel dataport and therefore no USB connectivity, it does have an Ethernet UTP port, so could be directly put on the local network. As I understand it, though, Macs these days don't have parallel printer ports, only USB ports.

 

So, how best should I connect all these together, so that both the PC and the Mac can readily access the printers? Using Microsoft printer sharing, that's built into WinXP, and the print-sharing features built into OSX? Or instead to get myself a print server and attach all three printers to the server and always print via that? I've identified an affordable and impressive print server from Edimax that has one parallel printer port and two usb2.0 printer ports. See:

 

http://www.edimax.co.uk/en/produce_detail.php?pd_id=53&pl1_id=7&pl2_id=34

 

Would I be wasting my money getting the server? Can printing be done just as easily, using the native features in the PC and the Mac? In short, has anyone any hands-on experience at doing this and who'd be willing to advise? I'm particularly concerned about getting the security right, as I'm all too well aware that 'File & Printer Sharing' in Windows machines is a regular target for virus-writers. A good many trojan viruses these days arrive in browser-borne spyware.

[jmmijo 1]

That should work just fine, at work we have an HP Laserjet with a built-in Print Server and it has it's on static IP.

 

As for the other printer back in the call center, it's an Okidata Laser with both Parallel and USB, I think the print server it's connected to is an older Parallel port style and it too has it's own static IP.

 

The only thing I'm not sure about on this Edimax unit is if it NAT's all three ports to a single static IP or does it allow you to assign a static IP to each of the three shared ports ?!?

[packman 0]

With respect, you haven't actually addressed the question in hand, being that, on a local home network, is it easier and any more secure to use simple peer-to-peer printing, using the sharing features found in Windows and Mac OSX, or is it always better to use a separate print server?

 

This is not the situation of a corporate LAN or of any remotely-accessed printer(s). Neither does the scenario include printers with built-in server ports.

 

The fundamental problem I have, in later introducing the Mac, is that the Laserjet has only a parallel interface (plus Ethernet), whilst the photo-printers are USB only and have no provision for built-in server or built-in Ethernet port.

 

There are several different hardware configurations that one could devise to share the three printers, with or without a specific server such as the Edimax.

 

The Laserjet is a 4M Plus and I'm not even sure whether the Mac would have a driver for it, so even if I were to put the Laserjet directly on to the Ethernet hub, the Mac might not be able to address it.

 

Obviously, I could leave all three printers on the Windows PC and configure things to effectively make the PC into a server for the Mac, but I'd have the fag of always needing to turn the PC on when printing from the Mac.

 

Get me?

[jmmijo 1]

I get you, but really, a HOME LAN/NETWORK is not different then one being used at a business, except it's size basically.

 

The company I work for is not a large place in terms of how many machines are connected and we have segmented both class A and class C networks from each other for internal testing/use.

 

Getting back to the issue at hand, that HP sounds like it already has a print server built into it, being that it has an ethernet connection, I've only ever seen this on printers that have a built-in print server

 

Just find the manual for that printer and find out if indeed that is the case and if so, what is the default static IP address.

 

Then using a web browser you should be able to connect to that IP address on the lan, once you connected a cable to it, and reconfigure if need be to match your own local IP schema.

 

So if you using the 10.10.10.xxx that would be a class A non-routable block.

 

Once you have done this then you use Add a Printer applet via Windows and then use Network Printer to locate it.

 

If need be you may want to d/l the latest drivers for that 4M Plus model from HP's website.

 

As for the MAC, it should have something similar to connect to a network printer, but I really am not familiar with OSX so I can't really help you there, sorry.