TECHIES AND NEWBIES

Today, most of us all over the world depend on technology; they are quietly helpful especially to a big and wide establishments or a large network group. Sharing of technology resources are now possible because we have a Local Area Network (LAN); wireless or Ethernet network, most of the devices nowadays such as printers, scanners, etc. are produced with a built-in network ports, and so that it can join all over the network and anyone in the network can easily access them. If you’re planning on buying a printer soon, you should consider buying a network printer. Prices have come down in recent years and now that most people have wireless networks, you can setup your network so that you can print from anywhere in the house or office! It’s also great for guests because they can connect to your wireless network and print easily, so you’ll get lots of kudos as a host!

The printer is one of the many everyday use devices that we can easily to set-up in the network. Here’s what you’ll need to do in order to setup the printer on your network:

Open the package and make sure that all the package stuff has already in there; device manual, power cord, USB cable, device driver CD and a CAT5 cable for network.

To start, first, connect the printer to your network by connecting one end of a Cat 5 cable to your router And the other end into the network port of your printer. Turn your printer on and wait for it to become ready.

Next you’ll need to get the IP address of your printer. The IP address is what will tell your computer where to find your printer on the network. All network printers allow you to print a configuration sheet which will list basic information about the printer along with the current network configuration. For most printers, this involves pressing the Menu button on the printer, going to the Information option and choosing Print Configuration. You will be looking for the TCP/IP section:

The IP Address is what you’ll need for the next steps

Next step, we will make an access to the printer from your PC. Just go to Start>Control Panel>Printer and Faxes

If you don’t see this in your Start Menu, you can go to Start, Control Panel and then click on Printers and Faxes there. Click Add Printer from the task pane on the left.

The Add Printer wizard will begin, so click Next to get started. On the next screen you’ll be asked whether your printer is a local printer or a network printer. These options are confusing because a network printer is actually referring either a printer connected to another computer or a printer on a print server. Our printer is a stand-alone printer and so you must select Local printer attached to this computer and make sure that you uncheck the box for automatically detecting the printer.

Click Next and you’ll be asked to select the printer port. Since our printer is a network printer with a IP address, we need to select the Create a new port option and choose Standard TCP/IP Port.

Click Next and you’ll get another wizard to add a TCP/IP printer port. On the main wizard screen click Next. In the first text box, Printer Name or IP Address, enter the IP address from the printer configuration sheet you printer earlier.

Click Next and depending on the printer you have, you may get one more dialog before the end of the wizard. If the network card for the printer cannot be identified, the wizard will ask you to choose the card type. You can leave the default of “Generic Network Card” and click Next.

Click Next and click Finish. You will then continue on with the Add Printer wizard and you’ll need to either choose the printer from the list of manufacturers or click Have Disk and insert your printer driver cd in the computer.

Click Next and enter a name for your printer and click the Yes radio button if you would like the printer to be your default printer.

Click Next and you’ll be asked whether you want to share the printer or not. Click No because anyone else who wants to connect will be able to do so following the same steps.