Mac at School/ Printer Quandry

[sethwerkheiser]

I'm finally getting a Mac later this month, either an iBook or PowerBook. Anyways, my wife and I will be using these for school. With that, we do most of our printing at school (or sometimes at work, shhhhh!)

In the past we'd do our work at home, on our Compaq, save it to a floppy, then print it out at school or work.

Now, once we get our Mac's, with no floppy drive... well I'm wondering what other people have done to get around this. I know I can get an external floppy drive, but I'd rather not. How about burning to a CDR? USB drives?

Just really looking for feedback on how other students might have gotten around this.

THANKS!

 

[robbieduncan]

Email it to yourself? Or post it on your iDisk (I think you can get to this from a PC?). Obviously you have to sign up for .Mac to get an iDisk.

Edit: You can mount an iDisk on a PC: http://help.apple.com/itoolshelp/1/help/idisk/pgs/dsk17.htm

 

[j763]

I'd just email...

Email services are much much cheaper than .Mac

I personally use FastMail -- it's darn cheap (hell, you could even use their free account).

 

[primalman]

Or just take the i/PowerBook to the school, plug it into the network, configure the printer and print. Done. Easy. No wasting a CD, no dealing with a disk at all, no emailing a file and hoping that Internet is up that day. No hassle really. Just find any open port, load the printer in PrintCenter [or chooser if you are running OS9] and go to it.

 

[sethwerkheiser]

plug in?

Originally posted by primalman
Or just take the i/PowerBook to the school, plug it into the network it

Gosh, I feel so "newbie-ish" but you can just "plug in" to the network at schools? I understand the concept but I just couldn't see walking into a computer room, finding a ethernet cord, and plugging in.

 

[MacUser1]

USB Drives

or you could just purchase one of those USB MicroDrives...some are really cheap...that's what I did.

 

[primalman]

Re: plug in?

Originally posted by sethwerkheiser


Gosh, I feel so "newbie-ish" but you can just "plug in" to the network at schools? I understand the concept but I just couldn't see walking into a computer room, finding a ethernet cord, and plugging in.

Just make sure you set your networking panel to be what the network at the school is, 9 times out of 10 that will be by DHCP. Enjoy!

 

[sethwerkheiser]

wow...

wow, thanks for the quick reply guys! I couldnt imagine getting these fast responses for Compaq laptop users.

I've considerd those USB-mini drives.. those like 32meg keychain things. The only problem is neither of our schools are very "up to date" with their hardware.

With that I wonder how keen they'd be to us connecting to their network. Hmmm...

And this is the one thing from my wife wanting to get a Mac for herself (I'm getting one regardless). I'd hate to see her get another Compaq just because of this.

 

[unc32]

An email to yourself is always the easiest, plus it is a backup.

 

[primalman]

Re: wow...

Originally posted by sethwerkheiser


With that I wonder how keen they'd be to us connecting to their network. Hmmm...

Most schools, like univeristies and comm. colleges, have this kind of thing built in to the network, empty jacks in the union and library etc. just have a CAT 5 cable with you when you go, find the jack, go DHCP and voila!