Wont go into why but we now have 2 isp's and 2 networks in the house. One network can use the printer directly over wifi but the other can't.

I get lost in the myriad of features that can be used in routers and wonder if there is a simple solution in that area. There's gateways, port forwarding and other bits and pieces.

As far as actual machines go there doesn't seem to be a direct way of doing this on windows or mac. I'm on Linux which might help but am wired to the other router. I could add wifi to my PC. I have actually and the system can see that it's there along with the wired connection but not sure how I can go any further.

I print via cups – another area that I soon get lost in that has features I have no idea about at all. I understand it will even broadcast hey there is a printer here even over the web.

John

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Yes they are 2 separate routers with their own broadband connection. The obvious thing for me to do is to add wifi to my machine but while I can switch from my normal connection to that it looks like I can't have both up at the same time.

One router is from talktalk and the other virgin. I do have a real business router as well that I could use on either of them.

France's link looks promising but will need some studying to allow me to comprehend it. In practice it's only me that needs to make the link to the printer. I spent some time looking around on the web but didn't find anything like the link.

I'd wondered about the various remote log in options but as Steven mentions they have to be logged into in order to be safe.

Also wifi dongles of various types. I wasn't aware that print servers were available so will take a look. In the past I have run a printer via a direct wire and by wifi so that might work out. There were some simple wifi links about that could be assigned a static ip mainly for linking things that could only use wire but they seem to have disappeared. They were very crude too.

I suspect if I do anything devious in the router that is connected to the printer win or mac may have problems. Especially mac. We also have ipads. These both seem to demand that the printer is on the machines normal network and no way to assign an address to it. Linux can be a pain as people sometimes do have to assign an address to the printer. I'd guess there will be some way of assigning an address in windows.

Noticing a comment about wifi speed I feel that the best answer is a business router but they all seem to use ppoe over 10 base T so need a modem in bridge mode to connect to a phone line. In bridge mode they hardly need to do anything so will reach high bandwidths. They cost more too. One reason I have this problem is probably because I disconnected one of these and fitted the talktalk thing and didn't re install it. Any time I complain to talktalk they more or less insist on having one of their routers on the end, On the other hand there is a lot of internet and other activity here at times so 2 isp's taking phone deals into account makes some sense – well sort of anyway.

John

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It's a Brother colour laser. I do need to look at the manual for it more thoroughly. I don't have any problems connecting things the normal way or setting static IP's if needed etc. The rest though is a black hole as I have never needed to do it.

If the printer will do it then setting a suitable IP address and changes to the sub net mask in the routers should look after it. Not sure I would like to put a web ip address on it. Then comes the Apple Talk problem – there silly rather insecure method of driving things. I can fake that from Linux though and provide an apple talk print service and have done in the past but we eventually bought a printer that will work with apple all on it's own.

John

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If I could run a cable to the printer it would be easy but no chance of me doing that. It has to be over wifi and in a fashion that allows all the Apple devices to still find the printer automatically. I did spend some time looking at what an Ipad can do in this line as I gained the impression that it could connect to two networks at the same time. It can't.

I'm running OpenSuse too and have to set a static ip address for the printer. This seems to be down to cups the print server. It will only find printers when asked to so if the router reboots and the ip address changes it has to be told to find it again. It''s a minor inconvenience really. Apple get round it by broadcasting data that includes IP addresses which is why it's viewed as insecure but I suppose as it's over wifi people would only have problems if they have a hacker for a neighbour.

John

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DHCP doesn't set static addresses. It sets them on the fly and they can vary each time the router is rebooted. All of the routers I have used have an over ride on this that involves setting a static ip address in relationship to a particular piece of equipment's mac address.

Some routers make this easy to do. Some show the mac addresses on an interface page that doesn't allow the static address to be set so they have to be written down.

DHCP – Dynamic Host Control Protocol

**LINK**

Maybe different makes of router use different terminology.

John

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I had a series of these claiming to be representing MS and telling me my machine was screaming for help. Odd as I run Linux.

Another one did get a bit further – your windows machine is causing problems as it has a virus. Only windows machine at the time was my son's. Fortunately they asked him to do something he was aware of that was stupid really – clearing out windows fault history so he disconnected.

People may get asked for the IP address – don't. They may even tell people what to do and ask what the pc shows.

Slightly related. I noticed something odd about nuisance phone calls. I might be wrong but they seemed to hit a peak when I ordered something or the other and entered my phone number – particularly with carrier services. I've started entering it incorrectly on purpose. Much to my amazement they seem to have dropped off but I also use caller id and if I don't recognise the number I don't answer the phone. Real callers will use the answer phone. The caller ID often shows an incorrect sd code anyway.

John

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John

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