Wireless or Wires...that is the Question?

[macdon401]

...a friend and i were talking the other day and the subject of wireless came up.
Since both of us are old timers we both have wired systems, we were wondering how well printers work, at really high professinal dpi without wires??
And other components as well...please let us know if you are pro wireless or a wired guy like us?
R

 

[aristobrat]

My network uses both.

I have 4 DirecTV TiVos that are wired because transferring shows between them wirelessly takes 2x longer than wired.

The rest of the house (MacBook Pro, PowerBook, Intel Mac mini, and a Dell PC, plus any friend that wanders over with their laptop) is all wireless. I use an Apple Airport Extreme as the cable modem router and main provider of WiFi as well as Airport Express as a wireless print/music server (it's hooked to my stereo via RCA and to a Samsung laser printer via USB). None of the computers here have had any problems printing to the printer. The printer has no idea that the data came wirelessly vs. wired.

 

[ravenvii]

My network uses both.

I have 4 DirecTV TiVos that are wired because transferring shows between them wirelessly takes 2x longer than wired.

The rest of the house (MacBook Pro, PowerBook, Intel Mac mini, and a Dell PC, plus any friend that wanders over with their laptop) is all wireless. I use an Apple Airport Extreme as the cable modem router and main provider of WiFi as well as Airport Express as a wireless print/music server (it's hooked to my stereo via RCA and to a Samsung laser printer via USB). None of the computers here have had any problems printing to the printer. The printer has no idea that the data came wirelessly vs. wired.

Just wondering, have you had any problems with the Dell and the wireless printer setup? I used to have a similar setup, and my two Macs had no problems at all with the printer, but the Dell worked fine at first, then all the sudden decided it doesn't want to see the 'wireless' printer.

 

[zap2]

MY wireless printing work just as good as the Mac hooked upto it, now i'm not printing anything that is "hard" to print but it works fines.. as for wire with keyboards and mice, the only thing i don't like about it is how you system needs to connect and sometimes is lose connection, or when you have system troubles sometimes it forces you to use a USB mouse/keyboard

 

[aristobrat]

Just wondering, have you had any problems with the Dell and the wireless printer setup? I used to have a similar setup, and my two Macs had no problems at all with the printer, but the Dell worked fine at first, then all the sudden decided it doesn't want to see the 'wireless' printer.

Knock on wood, no problems so far.

 

[Josias]

I tried a bluetooth printer at a friends house with my MB. Works spankin'ly perfect. I've never tried over 802.11 networks though, but I have heard of many successful attempts of setting such networks up with printers.

 

[netdog]

...a friend and i were talking the other day and the subject of wireless came up.
Since both of us are old timers we both have wired systems, we were wondering how well printers work, at really high professinal dpi without wires??
And other components as well...please let us know if you are pro wireless or a wired guy like us?
R

For printing, wireless is fantastic. I keep my printer in the utility room now. Very happy with the setup. No drop in speed.

 

[Mojo67821]

If I could eliminate all wires in my life I would. Although, wireless electricity probably isnt' possible

I use a kensington bluetooth mouse with my MBP and it works flawlessly. Only have to change the batteries every couple of weeks (you shut it off when not in use). The signal is usually picked up in 2-3 seconds of clicking the mouse, and I never lose it.

 

[emaja]

Since the bottleneck in wireless printing is the printer itself, using either 802.11B/G or BT will make no difference. Your printer can only print so fast.

If you want to transfer files over the network, especially if they are large files, you will want to use ethernet. Even under optimal conditions, 802.11G is half as fast at 54mbps as ethernet is at 100mbps.

It will matter a bit for web broswing as your typical connection tops out at about 6mbps.

If I could eliminate all wires in my life I would. Although, wireless electricity probably isnt' possible

So they would have us believe. Nikola Tesla thought otherwise.

 

[netdog]

The only thing that I find wireless unbearable for is moving really large amounts of data. Moving multiple GBs of data to my network drive is a real drag. Moving MBs is not however.

 

[benthewraith]

So they would have us believe. Nikola Tesla thought otherwise.

Damn, beat me to it. I thought that the moment I saw his post.