newbie networking questions about airport extreme

[wannabe07]

I've read through a lot of similar posts, but a lot of the terminology is foreign to me, so I need some help with my specific situation. Here's what I want to do...

I want to wirelessly connect my MB, external HD, 2 printers, and my husband's PC desktop. We have DSL and of course, no phone jacks in the office where the majority of these toys reside. None of the printers or HD is network-ready, so they would need to be wired to something.

If I put an Airport Extreme in the office, hooked up to the printers and HD (with a USB hub or something), I am assuming that the AEBS would need to be wired to the DSL modem (which lives in the living room). Is that correct? Is my best option to run a ridiculously long ethernet cable from the DSL modem to the AEBS? Is any of this possible?

Thank you in advance for your help and patience.

 

[Alan Taylor]

All possible - sounds good to me!

 

[waw74]

or run a long phone line, and put the modem in the office. Unless you're building your own ethernet cables, the phone line would probably be cheaper.

Also, I believe you can only do 1 printer per base station.

Print from anywhere.

With wireless printing through AirPort Extreme, it’s almost like having a printer in every room of the home or office. AirPort Extreme uses the Mac- and PC-compatible Bonjour networking technology to let everyone on the network take advantage of one centrally available printer. Wirelessly, of course.

but you can do a printer and a disk using a USB hub.

you could also get an airport express, wire it to the modem in the other room, then have the extreme extend that wireless network and share it to all the stuff in the office.

 

[wordmunger]

No, you don't need to run a phone line!

Put the Airport extreme in a room with a phone line. You can hook up one of the printers and the HD directly to the airport.

The other printer can go in the office with the computer and be hooked up directly to that. Does everyone need access to both printers? If the printer is hooked up to a Mac, then it can be shared over the network. I *think* it can be shared via PC as well.

 

[wannabe07]

Thanks everyone - you've been very helpful!

Here's another question: would you recommend buying an AEBS from someone other than Apple? I've thought about buying a refurbished one from them, but I know Amazon and other places sell them too.