www.ultimatehandyman.co.uk

Hullo!

I am asking for a new printer for Christmas and the one i like is the Canon MP610. I use a laptop at home and will be running the printer along side that and (perhaps not) an ancient desktop printer upstairs.

My question related to the connection. We can't afford to pay more to get a wireless printer, but i figured i'd just be able to plug my laptop in when i needed to print. Will this bugger things up - my plugging and unplugging the USB when i need to print?

Also, i am guessing that it would be easier to just print from the laptop only, rather than trying to get the ancient desktop in on the action too. Am i right?

Thanking you! :)

Sarah. x

Hey Sarah,

If you want to have both desktop and laptop seeing this printer, then what you can do fairly easily is setup the desktop to share the printer connected to it and then you can send print jobs to it pretty much like it is connected directly (obviously this does mean the desktop has to be switched on)
That will save you having to carry the laptop upstairs, plug in the printer, etc, etc - so a little bit of configuration now may save a bit of hassle later.

the other way is like you say, just plug in the printer to the laptop when you want to print and that is a perfectly reasonable way to do it as well.

Out of interest, what internet router do you have?

Thanks for that. I think it's going to be easier to keep the printer downstairs and plug and unplug the laptop as and when, provided that won't knacker it up. We barely use the desktop, so we don't need to print from it that often.

We have a Netgear router from Sky.

sounds like a plan

you are ok plugging the cable in and out when you need to

Reason for asking about router is that some (the BT Home Hubs for one) have the ability to plug a USB printer into them and that turns the printer into a wireless one (they don't tell you that though ).
I don't know if the Netgear ones Sky provide have a similar feature - maybe one of the other members will know?

Aaaah right! That would be bloomin useful! Cheers. :)