Wirelessly printing with a PC and a Mac

Tonight I figured out how to connect my brother's Windows 7 PC to our printer over the wi-fi network in our house.  The family's iMac is connected to the printer.  We're not fancy enough yet to have a wi-fi printer that connects to a router.

Steps to get the setup working:

1. Enable printer sharing on the Mac (System Preferences > Print and Fax) Make sure you also share the specific printer you wish to use.
2. Install the correct Samsung printer driver on the Windows 7 PC.
3. Use the "Add Printer" feature on the Windows 7 PC control panel. And select the new print driver (added in step #2) for the model of printer we use.

To make the steps go smoothly, the mac needs to stay on (not be asleep) and the printer also needs to be on.

Step #2 was the hardest part, because the Driver installation wizard does not immediately tell you that you do not need to have the printer connected via USB.  If you click through the installation wizard for the printer (a Samsung model 2010), then you can get a dialog that gives you an option to continue the installation without the printer connected!

On the Mac, open System Preferences:

Now on the Windows 7 PC:

The Best Ways to Secure Your Wireless Network

You can easily prevent your neighbors or passers by from leeching off of your wireless network, and also prevent other more serious unauthorized access by these methods.

• Disable broadcasting of the SSID (network name) This will prevent most normal people from being able to see the network in the first place, unless they are using a wireless stumbler utility program on their computer. Even if someone can see the signal of an unnamed network, they will won't be able to connect unless they can guess the name of the network correctly.
  
• Enable Mac Address Filtering. This will only allow devices to connect to the network which match the mac addresses you've supplied. Every device with a wireless card has a unique mac address. This will prevent just about anyone from accessing your network, because they will have to guess a correct mac address that matches what you've added to the list. Mac addresses are made of up 12 hexadecimal characters, which means there are 281 trillion possible mac addresses according to Wikipedia.
  
• Use a strong password for the network. Don't use English words or other words from any language, use at least 8 characters, and at least one capital letter. Stronger passwords would ideally be 11 or more characters long.

Other things to secure a wireless network here:
Wireless Security - WiFi Wireless Home Network Security Tips - About.com

What Type of Wireless Network Security should I use?
(all info below compiled from DD-WRT's Wireless Security page)

• WEP is the worst kind to use.
• WPA2 seems to be the most common more secure option comared to the outdated WEP.

To keep things simple, the best options, in decreasing order of preference, may be:

1. WPA2 + AES
2. WPA + AES (only if all devices support it).
3. WPA + TKIP+AES (only if all devices can support it).
4. WPA + TKIP
5. WEP (will only keep out people with none or poor experience in computers)
6. Disabled (no security)

The most common two options will be WPA2 + AES and WPA + TKIP, because they match the mandatory requirements in the standards (WPA2 requires AES, WPA requires TKIP).

You can use WPA + AES for higher security than TKIP, but only if your devices support it (it is optional). For this reason it is not very common. You also do not get the improved roaming features of WPA2.

WEP was supposed to provide Confidentiality, but has found to be vulnerable and should no longer be used.

* Has been found to be vulnerable.
* Is often the default; this should be changed.
* Most devices that support WEP can be firmware/software upgraded to WPA.
* Do not use unless some devices can not be upgraded to support WPA.

WEP has been outdated for years and has better replacements. The 40-bit encryption is just not strong enough to keep data secure and can be broken rather easily. Newer encryption methods use stronger encryption and have yet to be broken while WEP can be broken in a minute according to this resource.

Use WPA where possible.

Wireless : KisMAC wi-fi stumbler, securing a network

KisMAC is an open-source and free stumbler/scanner application for Mac OS X. It has an advantage over MacStumbler / iStumbler / NetStumbler in that it uses monitor mode and passive scanning.

Creating an Uber-secure wireless network

* Disable broadcasting of the SSID (network name).
* Enable Mac address filtering, so that only authorized devices can access the network.

----

Tips for Maintaining Wireless Home Networks

Change the WiFi Channel Number to Avoid Interference

Most devices do not allow the administrative username to be changed, but if yours does, seriously consider changing this name as well.
via: About.com

Wireless: Client lease time, Linksys WRT54G2

Client Lease Time setting on Routers

When you have a large amount of computers then you increase the amount of load on the DHCP server if it has to be working all the time renewing leases and it adds traffic to the network.

To change the client lease time on the Linksys WRT54G2 router, login to the router's administration area by typing 192.168.1.1 into your browser.

From the main settings page (which should display right after logging in), scroll down a bit to see the Network setup section.




Change the client lease time here to whatever you like. Probably best to leave it at the default of (0) for 1 day. If it's less than one day, your connected machines/devices may get disconnected.

After making changes, click on the Save Settings button at the bottom of the page.

1 day = 1440 minutes
2 days = 2880 min.
5 days = 7220 min.


How client lease time affected your network and connected devices

...on a large network the chances of a conflict occurring [between connected devices] are greater if you use a long lease time
via: Comment on Ubuntu Forums

If you have a large network with machines being removed and connected to the network a lot.. you may run out of available IP addresses even though some are not being used..

for example say you have a dhcp range of 192.168.1.1 -- 192.168.1.20 and a lease time of 1 week.. now say you connect 20 computers to your network and they all lease IP addresses.. if you remove one computer and connect a different machine that machine will not be able to obtain an IP address until the week is up as all 20 available IP addresses have been leased out..
from another comment on the Unbuntu Forums

For a home router it doesn't matter too much, but less than a day could cause issues if gaming with others online. My buddy has DSL and they release like every hour or two and it's a pain in the butt. Set it for a couple days or so and you're fine.
Comment on Ubuntu Forums

On networks of less than 10 machines (my arbitrary choice) long DHCP lease times make more sense because the community of machines is unlikely to change, especially on home networks. Setting DHCP to a week wouldn't hurt for three machines and an average subnet on these routers is a class C (254 usable addresses) so you're unlikely to run out of IPs.
Comment with a few links to wireless network info

About the Linksys WRT42G2

I have noticed quite a few comments about poor range and/or reliability of this router. Range can be affected by a number of factors, including interference in your environment. Most Linksys routers default to channel 6, as the WRT54G2 does, so if you move to a new location, or this is your first Linksys wireless router, you may encounter poor performance if you are near other wireless Linksys routers. One simple way to solve this problem is to just change the router's channel.
via comment on Amazon discussion

in a later post writes:
Many of these routers have the same (or very similar chipsets); the only real difference between most of them is the firmware. Improve the firmware and you improve the router. For what it is worth, i read many accounts of how the dd-wrt solved similar problems for others, on a variety of different routers.

And his review of the product says:
After installing the Linux-based dd-wrt firmware on this router, i noticed two things: Firstly, the device became more stable and robust. For example, resetting the router no longer required power-cycling the cable modem, etc. Secondly, even though this router only supports the "micro" version of the dd-wrt firmware (due to its small flash RAM footprint), this firmware still offers *many* more features (and more polish) than the stock VxWorks-based Linksys firmware.

About Updating Firmware for Routers

About.com describes: an administrator can launch the actual upgrade from the wireless router's administrative console. The router will stop functioning if the upgrade fails to complete. For this reason, manufacturers generally recommend an Ethernet cable be run from the router to the PC to ensure maximum stability during the update. Consult the router's product documentation for details.

Read more

• A List of the Most Reliable Routers
• The Best Ways to Secure Your Wireless Network