The Apple Matters Interview: John Battelle
John Battelle is an entrepreneur, journalist, professor, and author. Currently …(read more)
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Posted: 26 February 2006 06:43 PM
I know I’m not the only one faced with this ultimate of challenges, printing across an XP/Mac network. I’ve tried a print server. I’ve tried Bonjour. My understanding finally and at long last is that I think you can’t do it with just any printer, that it has to be a network capable printer, which apparently my brand spanking new Canon Pixma iP4200 isn’t. Anyone gotten this to work with just your standard, average consumer printer? |
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Posted: 26 February 2006 07:21 PM
I to have worked on this problem, and I talked with Apple Care about it. I have been able to connect with my printer which is connected to my XP machine. I hit print, and I know a command is sent, because the printer starts going haywire and goes through all the paper in the feeder, printing out wierd asteriks and smiley’s on them. I think it has something to do with the type of encoding/commmands (I dn’t know what to call it) that the printer accepts. It must not be able to decode commands from the Mac, and/or it justs get messed up when going through the Windows box. To me, Windows XP is still in Beta testing. Macs RULE!! |
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Posted: 26 February 2006 07:31 PM
The problem is their inability to communicate with each other, not with one system or the other. After all, if XP is guilty of not being able to communicate with OS X, then OS X is just as guilty of not communicating with XP. And I can share my printer across multiple XP systems with no problem. Likewise across multiple OS X systems. This is specifically an issue of going from XP to OS X or vice versa. And why they can’t get together and make this work simply and easily is beyond me. |
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Posted: 26 February 2006 09:32 PM
Funny, I don’t have this problem with my Epson printer. |
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Posted: 27 February 2006 12:15 AM
A word or two on how you set yours up is what I’m looking for, FZ. Thanks. |
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Posted: 27 February 2006 04:55 PM
I know, but I don’t even know how I set it up. Please give me some time on this one.
You can share only printers that you select, or you can share all printers attached to your computer. Shared printers automatically appear in Print dialogs on other computers connected to your local network (your IP subnet). Documents waiting to print on your shared printers are stored on your hard disk. (That is, your computer hosts the queue for the printer.) To help others discover where to pick up their printed documents, open Printer Setup Utility (located in /Applications/Utilities), choose View > Show Printer List and select a printer. Choose Show Info from the Printers menu, and type a clear description of the printer’s location in the Location field. |
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Posted: 01 March 2006 03:13 PM
I tried all that. It’s basic printer sharing. It’s what I’d do if I was sharing my printer with anothe Mac, and it would work fine. But when I do this from XP-->Mac or vice versa, I can get as far as sharing the printer and even opening the printer dialogue box to print a page. But the page simply disappears into the ether. And this isn’t just me. It’s a VERY common problem. I think the issue at this point is that I have a non-post script printer without network capability. I’m not sure why yours worked, but chances are it supports either one of these or is supported by the Unix CUPS drivers built into OS X, which mine isn’t. |
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Posted: 01 March 2006 06:22 PM
Mine is attached to my airport express, so I wonder if that has anything to do with it. It’s the Epson Stylus Photo R2400 model, I like it.
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Posted: 01 March 2006 08:55 PM
Yeah, I was really leaning toward a USB switch but I didn’t see any the store I was shopping at. Thanks for the link. |
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Posted: 01 March 2006 09:31 PM
No problem, I’m full of links. |
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Posted: 01 March 2006 10:19 PM
Your personal life is your business. |
In fact I am using the same switch for my joystick.
