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Speaker 1: tech stuff from how stuff Works dot com, brought to
Speaker 1: you by HP Live Wirelessly, Prick Wirelessly. Hi there, and
Speaker 1: welcome to the podcast. My name's Jonathan Strickland. I'm a
Speaker 1: staff writer here at How Stuff Works. And with me
Speaker 1: is my favorite editor, Chris Polette. How's it going, High
Speaker 1: Energy Pillette is what we call him around here in
Speaker 1: the office. Well, today, Plett and I are going to
Speaker 1: talk to you a little bit about wireless printing. Yeah. Actually,
Speaker 1: it's been sort of a thing in our house lately.
Speaker 1: We've been trying to find a way to hook up
Speaker 1: this really old PC that I have. It's the only
Speaker 1: Windows computer I've got, but the only way that my
Speaker 1: wife can work from home. Uh, since she doesn't have
Speaker 1: a laptop computer from her from her work. So I
Speaker 1: talked to her into getting an Apple Airport Extreme, which
Speaker 1: is actually Airport Express. The Airport Extreme him is the
Speaker 1: regular hub. The Airport expresses a tiny, um tiny wireless
Speaker 1: hub sort of looks like a giant white plastic now
Speaker 1: and later, except it's got a little green light on
Speaker 1: one side and some ports on the other side. And
Speaker 1: what this does is I can plug this into my
Speaker 1: electrical outlet and it will hook up to the wireless
Speaker 1: network and extend that network. But for this wired, this
Speaker 1: old wired machine that I've got, we can actually plug
Speaker 1: it into there and it will allow the wired access
Speaker 1: to the wireless network, which is pretty nice. But it
Speaker 1: also has a USB port on it which allows us
Speaker 1: to hook up a printer. And now instead of having
Speaker 1: to go down the hall and plug our laptop computers
Speaker 1: into the printer itself and go ahead and you know,
Speaker 1: get everything spoiled up and print it out, we can
Speaker 1: actually turn on the printer, do work from the other
Speaker 1: room and print something out over the wireless network. And
Speaker 1: it's so much easier. It's so very convenient that uh uh.
Speaker 1: You know, we're just really happy with the way it
Speaker 1: worked out. And there are many different ways that you
Speaker 1: can do wireless printing, um uh. And they date back
Speaker 1: to well the mid to late nineties. That was really
Speaker 1: when we started seeing infrared systems being used. I r
Speaker 1: d A, which stands for the Infrared Data Association, came
Speaker 1: up with this. It's a standard where computer signals are
Speaker 1: converted into pulses of infra red light, and this light
Speaker 1: is then sent to a receiver which then decodes the
Speaker 1: signals and UH turns it back into a print shop
Speaker 1: and your printer prints it out. And it requires some adapters,
Speaker 1: both on the computer side and the printer side, but
Speaker 1: it would allow you to print wirelessly, um, which is
Speaker 1: kind of neat. You know, you got to cut back
Speaker 1: on the cables that were cluttering up. I mean, I
Speaker 1: don't know what your home office is like, but mine,
Speaker 1: I've I've got it looks like a squid has exploded
Speaker 1: behind my desk. So coming back on the cables is
Speaker 1: very attractive. But it had some downsides to it too. Um.
Speaker 1: The biggest downsite to infrared. The infrared approach is that
Speaker 1: it requires line of sight. That means that there needs
Speaker 1: to be a direct path pretty much between the transmitter
Speaker 1: and the receiver. If there's not, then the signal just
Speaker 1: doesn't make it and you won't get anything. So if
Speaker 1: you put that printer in a room down the hall
Speaker 1: and you send a print job, chances are it's not
Speaker 1: gonna make it. Yeah, I've had pretty good experience using infrared.
Speaker 1: When I try to change the channel with the remote
Speaker 1: for my TV. However, trying to sink a Palm Pilot
Speaker 1: and my old rev Aimac with the I r D
Speaker 1: A port on the front, you know, mostly involved me
Speaker 1: shaking it and going well won't you sink? So, you know,
Speaker 1: it's sort of a it seems sort of limited in
Speaker 1: that capacity. I'm guessing your wife would not want to
Speaker 1: pick up that desktop computer and yell out why won't
Speaker 1: you print? Well, I would talk about that. Okay, well
Speaker 1: we'll move on. So so that's the the infrared approach,
Speaker 1: but there are others as well. Um, one huge improvement
Speaker 1: was taking the bluetooth approach. Um. Now, bluetooth technology doesn't
Speaker 1: require line of sight, it's a it creates a personal
Speaker 1: area network and um it uses radio signals instead of
Speaker 1: infrared light. That's that's true. And computers are on a
Speaker 1: on a higher scale than that than your mobile phone
Speaker 1: would be. It's a pretty common mobile phone technology. There's
Speaker 1: people with wireless earpieces you see that seem to be
Speaker 1: talking to themselves in public places. You look kind of
Speaker 1: like cyborgs, right right, Um they are. They're using Bluetooth
Speaker 1: technology to communicate from the wireless earpiece to their phone, right,
Speaker 1: and that you can find this in all sorts of things,
Speaker 1: not just computers and printers and phones, but also a
Speaker 1: MP three players and other devices as well. And um,
Speaker 1: you can network multiple devices into the same Bluetooth network.
Speaker 1: I think up to eight according to our Bluetooth article
Speaker 1: and how stuff works, and um, so it's very handy
Speaker 1: and and these devices can talk to each other and
Speaker 1: and keep each other informed of where you are, and
Speaker 1: there's lots of neat tricks you can do with it.
Speaker 1: But as far as printing goes, uh, it just means
Speaker 1: that you can have a printer in one room and
Speaker 1: computers in other rooms and and have all those computers
Speaker 1: be able to print to that printer. Um. But the
Speaker 1: limitation is that, again the distance is not that great.
Speaker 1: So if you are in a multi story home or
Speaker 1: a very large ranch house where you've got the computer
Speaker 1: on one and then the printer on the other, it
Speaker 1: may not may not pick up the signal. Uh, And
Speaker 1: in that case you have to go with a third option. Well,
Speaker 1: but before we get to that, I was just going
Speaker 1: to point this out that when we went to the
Speaker 1: Consumer Electronics show, UM I saw a product that actually
Speaker 1: ended up as an article on our site called how
Speaker 1: ink Free Mobile Printers Work that Jane McGrath wrote, but
Speaker 1: it was about the Polaroid Pogo, which is a very
Speaker 1: small ink free printer that you can essentially stick in
Speaker 1: your pocket and while you are out and about you
Speaker 1: can take pictures with a Bluetooth enabled camera and send
Speaker 1: the signals directly to this little bitty pocket Polaroid printer.
Speaker 1: That was a pretty nifty bit of alliteration and print
Speaker 1: things out wirelessly, so you can even the Bluetooth wireless
Speaker 1: printing even allows you to do that. You don't have
Speaker 1: to carry around a cable and have it, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: something else to lose with you while you're out running around,
Speaker 1: you know, taking nature photos or you know, going to
Speaker 1: c e s and taking pictures that you want to print,
Speaker 1: you know, whatever you happen to be doing while you're
Speaker 1: you're on the gust. So it's that that's sort of
Speaker 1: a neat application of it that that you wouldn't be
Speaker 1: able to do if you had to worry about, you know,
Speaker 1: keeping track of all your cables, or at least it
Speaker 1: would make it a little bit more difficult. That's true.
Speaker 1: That's true. Bluetooth has made mobile printing uh possible. Before
Speaker 1: it was just uh, you know, you're pretty much were
Speaker 1: tied down to some sort of physical location. But that's
Speaker 1: that's pretty nifty nifty now granite Bluetooth also has some
Speaker 1: other downsides besides the range. Um. We didn't actually mention that,
Speaker 1: but there's some security issue, is there too Bluetooth devices.
Speaker 1: It's it's if you're not careful, you can easily get
Speaker 1: eaves dropped upon or blue jacked. We talked about that
Speaker 1: in another podcast. Um, so yeah, there's some downsides to
Speaker 1: that technology as well. That's that's true. And um, you
Speaker 1: know that seems to be common with all the different
Speaker 1: wireless platforms, uh you know. And then and of course
Speaker 1: the the largest and more common of these, especially with
Speaker 1: regard to wireless printing, is WiFi, which is the uh
Speaker 1: A O two dot eleven standard A b g N
Speaker 1: element O P see um. And basically what that is
Speaker 1: is this is the wireless network that you access when
Speaker 1: you go to your local coffee shop and you open
Speaker 1: your laptop and there you go, there's a network. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, this is the same kind of printing that
Speaker 1: you might find it, you know, maybe a bigger office,
Speaker 1: not a small office, home office. More like, uh, you
Speaker 1: know a the wireless printer on your floor if you
Speaker 1: have one at your company. Um, and it's what I've
Speaker 1: got set up in my my office at home, I've
Speaker 1: got a WiFi extender and that's how it's making a connection. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I have the same sort of thing. It's UM, use
Speaker 1: a wireless router to create my wireless network. And uh.
Speaker 1: This ATO two point eleven standard was set by the
Speaker 1: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers the I Triple E,
Speaker 1: or as Chris has learned, the way I like to
Speaker 1: say it is as my friends in Louisiana do I E. Uh,
Speaker 1: Joe just never gets old, does it. Uh? Not to you, No,
Speaker 1: not to me, And that's all that really matters. But
Speaker 1: at any rate, so this standard allows you to to
Speaker 1: transmit signals and it's a it's a radio signal like Bluetooth,
Speaker 1: except it's more powerful, so there's a greater range. UM. Now, grant,
Speaker 1: if you have a really large house, you might need
Speaker 1: an extender so that they they the signal can go
Speaker 1: throughout the entire home. Uh. Some people just recommend that
Speaker 1: you put your router um in the middle, or if
Speaker 1: you have a multi story home in the top level
Speaker 1: of your home to kind of extend the signal throughout
Speaker 1: the rest of the building. Um, that can work, or
Speaker 1: you might just need to buy a booster of some sort.
Speaker 1: But that that is, uh, there's one way to print wirelessly. Now.
Speaker 1: In fact, you were saying that there's some printers coming
Speaker 1: out that or there are printers that are out that
Speaker 1: have these wireless cards already installed, so you don't even
Speaker 1: have to buy an adapter. Yeah, the black and black
Speaker 1: and white UM back to school Uh circulars I've seen lately. Uh,
Speaker 1: ironically enough in color UM have a lot of printers.
Speaker 1: I was surprised a lot of them have the print
Speaker 1: servers built in. And they're using that as a major
Speaker 1: selling point right now. Uh they're saying, you know, get
Speaker 1: a printer back to school and you know what's wireless.
Speaker 1: It's wireless. And I'm thinking, well, that's that's kind of new,
Speaker 1: because you know before that just wasn't a selling point.
Speaker 1: But I guess with uh, you know, with the state
Speaker 1: of networking in the home right now, it's pretty common
Speaker 1: and to have our wireless network, it would be very
Speaker 1: easy to uh to do that, and if you didn't
Speaker 1: have if you bought a laptop or desktop computer and
Speaker 1: didn't have a wireless network, but you know, had the
Speaker 1: equipment install, had the card install, that would be very
Speaker 1: easy for you to network right to that printer across
Speaker 1: the room. Then you don't have to worry about fishing
Speaker 1: the cables over or trying to to hook it up
Speaker 1: to the computer if you don't have room. It's just
Speaker 1: a nice advantage of you know, having that baked right
Speaker 1: into the printer hardware. And and since wireless networks are
Speaker 1: getting more popular, I guess it's it would be irresponsible
Speaker 1: of us not to address the security issues of of WiFi. Um,
Speaker 1: if you have a wireless network, it is really important
Speaker 1: that you make sure it's secure. That's because anyone going
Speaker 1: near your house, anyone who or apartment or whatever, if
Speaker 1: if they can, if they can detect that network and
Speaker 1: it's unsecure, they could tap in and at at the
Speaker 1: very least they could end up using up all your
Speaker 1: bandwidth and you would get a huge bill from your
Speaker 1: internet service provider. But at worst they would be able
Speaker 1: to infiltrate your network and check up on all your
Speaker 1: personal information. If you do internet shopping, they might even
Speaker 1: be able to hack into that sort of thing or
Speaker 1: bank records. It's really really dangerous to have an unsecured network. So, uh,
Speaker 1: make sure that you you do all the right steps.
Speaker 1: Make sure you you have a firewall in place, and
Speaker 1: that you've got the settings set properly. Make sure that
Speaker 1: you have a difficult password so that people can't just
Speaker 1: guess at what it is. It's um, it's no joke.
Speaker 1: I mean it. It can really really ruin lives if
Speaker 1: you don't if you don't secure that wireless network. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I've actually read reports that well. Of course,
Speaker 1: because the internet connection is traceable to you, people have
Speaker 1: been in trouble with the Recording Industry Association of America
Speaker 1: because yeah, r I double a yeah, And basically people
Speaker 1: were camping out outside people's homes using their wireless connection
Speaker 1: and downloading music from some of the file sharing services.
Speaker 1: And the people who are getting hit with these lawsuits
Speaker 1: and there haven't been I haven't seen but maybe one
Speaker 1: or two, I think, and it's been some time now,
Speaker 1: but you know, I you can imagine what it would
Speaker 1: be like if somebody came up and said, here's a uh,
Speaker 1: you know, a summons. You're being sued for downloading music
Speaker 1: and you're thinking, well, I've never done that, you know,
Speaker 1: But if you leave your wireless network open, I mean,
Speaker 1: they may not necessarily be going through your files, but
Speaker 1: they may be using your internet connection to do something
Speaker 1: that you might not want to use for. But um,
Speaker 1: as far as the printers go, I saw an article
Speaker 1: in on the INC website for INC Magazine Business Magazine,
Speaker 1: and they say that really, if you could just add
Speaker 1: it to the VPN, added to your your firewall, put
Speaker 1: it behind the firewall, you can still enjoy the benefits
Speaker 1: of using wireless printer without necessarily having to worry about
Speaker 1: going into the printer and you know, messing with the
Speaker 1: sittings because some of those are easier to to affect
Speaker 1: than others. So um, you know it may be just
Speaker 1: that simple to to keep your printer secure. Right. Well,
Speaker 1: I guess that wraps up this discussion on wireless printing
Speaker 1: in general. I hope you guys learned something new. If
Speaker 1: you want to learn more, please go to how stuff
Speaker 1: works dot com and read our article what are the
Speaker 1: different ways you can print without using wires? We'll talk
Speaker 1: to you again soon for more on this and thousands
Speaker 1: of other topics. Is that how stuff Works dot com.
Speaker 1: Let us know what you think, Send an email to
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