Hi, I'm a Windows Expert but no so hot with Macs

[smz]

I am trying to accomplish One thing and either way I will be happy.

I had a HP Laserjet with No Mac OS support and every third party drive didn't work at all. So I sold the windows only LJ and just bought a Mac OS X compatible HP LJ.

This is what you're dealing with. Latest macbook pro released purchased 10/2007. Entry level 2.2ghz/7600GT 128mb/160gb upgrade hd/and 4GB ram upgrade (not from apple) Running tiger. Have leopard but want tiger to work first with this.

OK that said. I run a wired and wireless lan with over 5 machines. All are windows based 98se, W2k, Server 2003, XP Pro, and a combo of Tiger and Vista via Parallels.

I also aquired a brand new Apple gigabit basestation extreme supporting ABGN and one USB jack for printer or drive sharing.

A smart person would want the printer with the most traffic to reside on a print server outside a PC. So I would say this would be my first choice if both methods work.

But I plug in the new HP which by the way is model P1006 (Crazy newegg.com sale for $59.99 and no rebate. MSRP $179 included free shipping) My HP 1018/1020 is being sold for a hair under that the new one costs.

The airport extreme sees the USB printer though using Bonjour for windows, no such luck with any connectivity and this also occured before I got the LJ P1006. I used the HP 1020 which only had windows drivers, and bonjour for XP would not let me print to it despite no errors on the print wizard.

So ultimately I would like the print on the mac basestation sharing the HP with my Windows PC's and Expecially my Macbook Pro.

I have one small issue I can't seem to figure out (man I can figure anything out on a PC, but not on a mac just yet) - This base station looks like by design you are stuck with 3 ip ranges and are stuck with .1 as your default suffix no matter what. I would like to run it in my subnet of 192.168.1.0/255.255.255.0 but I have a wireless lan on the other side of the house that is bridged in and has a fixed IP of 192.168.1.1. So I cannot get the base station to give me something other than .1. Every works under 10.0.1.1 and once it configured itself for 10.0.1.49 and I didn't do anything different. But these tests were done with the wireless bridge unhooked and the base station configured as 192.168.1.1.

For the record, bonjour sees it on Windows machines but though it installs without an error, it doesn't work.

Now let's head to the mac side. NADA. End of story.

So option #2 is still feasible because I run Windows Server 2003 24/7 and it never crashes and has UPS protection. I have shared the printer with no auth needed and full control to user group "everyone" not concerned with printer security.

Now without a mac involved in the foreground. My windows machines can connect and print fast and perfect while connecting through W2K3 to the LJ P1006. But Mac OS X says nada. Always default to "workgroup" under windows printing. My workgroup name is hitradio but I can't change it. I have repeated the same option many times using the option key while pressing more printers to activate the advanced option for samba based printing. No Luck.

Furthermore, the Laserjet Driver from HP have been installed a couple times and do not show up as an available HP printer??? No errors on the install. Unlike a PC, I don't know if Mac has something like an INF file to do it manually by extracting the contents directory from the HP package installer.

So in a nutshell, there you have it. The mac sees nothing on the base station and windows server. But even if that issue gets conquered, I still need the HP driver and not a gimp based internal mac driver. This low end laserjet printers used a host based printing method so the drivers are specific to the printer. They cover both the P1000 and P1500 series.

Anyone have an idea why the installed HP laserjet drive package downloaded straight from HP with Safari is not propagating to the mac devices database?

I help moderate over at a more PC based tech support forum but seems no mac literate experts are out there including myself, but I'm working on it.

Thanks for your time everyone.
Scott

[junt]

I have attended Microsoft seminars and its a very complicated thing using different version of windows in a networking scheme like vista and windows 98se and its not advisable., for the system do bog down and it does ive seen it a couple of times but nevertheless its a choice, but ill give you something to work on, Gimp driver support for your printer is big problem for as they have it Gimp is generic support and you know what that means.

The first thing you've got to do is to make the printer run native meaning let it stand alone first with the mac and if it cannot run thru Gimp then there's no use to run it on your net cause the mac cannot use it.,
2nd you know very that even networking you still install the printer drivers., the best thing to do there is that you acquire a printer with good online networking capabalities such as Kyocera FX or the FS series.,I have encounter the same problems before and a good printer with good networking capabilities will do the trick.
And little reminder should liven you up do not delimit your system setup by the equipment you use you have a very elaborate setup there and good equiptment is a must.
Even windows Vista suffers to a lot of issues as it is, what more for your printer, or better yet let it come in with one of your CPU's as in a print server never mind the speed as long as it prints

junt

[smz]

Well, I solved the problem because every printer that is not network ready out of the box suffers from an ongoing problem when shared off windows. Even a universal print server that speaks Bonjour fails (tiger detects every printer as generic post script)

turns out the printer I ultimately had a problem with when I started with works like a charm with an Apple base station extreme. Now that's an insane amount of money to spend on a solution for simply wanting to print from my mac to a printer in another room or anywhere in the house for that matter, but since it was clear that method creates what seems like a virtual USB connection to the mac similar to what windows does with some drivers and print servers, making tiger think the printer is attached to the usb port therefore using the manufacturer's provided drivers without a hitch. I still wasn't content because of the money involved, so I found the Apple Express station on craigslist for $25. The guy even delivered it to me. It's got the ability for lan, wan, wireless, usb printer support, and streaming airtunes. Everything is still peachy with my printer tool Now, I will take a small loss on the base station and sell it to someone who can make better use of it than I. My wireless-n router is one of the best on the market and isn't limited like the apple gigabit.

Take Care.
SMZ

I have attended Microsoft seminars and its a very complicated thing using different version of windows in a networking scheme like vista and windows 98se and its not advisable., for the system do bog down and it does ive seen it a couple of times but nevertheless its a choice, but ill give you something to work on, Gimp driver support for your printer is big problem for as they have it Gimp is generic support and you know what that means.

The first thing you've got to do is to make the printer run native meaning let it stand alone first with the mac and if it cannot run thru Gimp then there's no use to run it on your net cause the mac cannot use it.,
2nd you know very that even networking you still install the printer drivers., the best thing to do there is that you acquire a printer with good online networking capabalities such as Kyocera FX or the FS series.,I have encounter the same problems before and a good printer with good networking capabilities will do the trick.
And little reminder should liven you up do not delimit your system setup by the equipment you use you have a very elaborate setup there and good equiptment is a must.
Even windows Vista suffers to a lot of issues as it is, what more for your printer, or better yet let it come in with one of your CPU's as in a print server never mind the speed as long as it prints

junt

[junt]

Nice to hear from you, I honestly knew that your gonna find the solution.Good hunting, Lykwyz take care and have a nice day.

junt

[smz]

Ya, I might not be as proficient with the mac os vs. windows, but HP, Canon, and Apple tech support all concur on the way drivers for the mac are written and the almost non exist support for home based printers being accessed via printer server (non apple) or a windows machine for instance. Basically they refer to the database of drivers are written for usb direct support only. if you have a network ready printer, then the manufacturer provides a driver or it will generally be PCL compatible. Home printers (host based), are not made to work on a mac unless they are directly plugged into the usb slot. Almost no exceptions from the different tech support departments I've dealt with. But when using an apple base station or express with the USB printer server option, some how when using the add printer utility under os x, it sees the printer as Bonjour but then once it connects, it's as if it's a local USB and the correct printer driver always pops up and works instantly. However, even if you have just say the HP Laserjet P1006 like myself. This has a Mac OS X driver which works peachy if you plug it in to the usb port. Also under a windows VM via parallels, the HP will print fine as well. But just because a printer says mac on the box doesn't mean it will work in a networked environment. Only exception are higher end printers that have PCL support that MAC supports with generic drivers out of the box. Nothing fancy here, just a basic driver so you can print. Nevertheless, my $25 Apple Express station was a steal and problem solved. Anyone want a almost new Apple Gigabit base station Wireless N mega cheap? don't need it anymore.