Introduction: Got an old workhorse laser printer with a parallel port in back? This gadget turns it into a wireless printer. Great for your home network!

D-Link made some great products but they, um, forgot to include configuration instructions for Macintosh users. Having wasted several hours of my life that I'll never get back, I wanted to share my success. I do kind of wonder if these great little devices were discontinued simply because the instructions were so poor that nobody could get them working! That certainly seems to be the general sentiment on Amazon's reviews page!

Note: Since the above models are discontinued and getting harder to find, try this alternative at Amazon. Warning: I have not tried one myself and cannot offer any configuration advice.

These instructions are specifically for MacOS X Tiger (10.4), connecting a DP-311p D-Link print server to a Hewlett-Packard LaserJet 4MP printer through my Apple Airport Base Station, which was configured to distribute IP addresses using 10.0.1.1 addressing. However, the general approach should work with other equipment since there's nothing special about any of this hardware or software.

1. Go to System Preferences/Network

2. In the Location pull-down menu, choose New Location... and create one called "Wireless Printer Setup" or something like that.

3. Under the Show pull-down menu, choose Airport.

4. Click the TCP/IP tab and enter the following settings. When done, be sure to click the Apply Now button.

5. Set the switch on the print server to "Config" mode. Make sure the printer and print server are connected, plugged in and turned on.

6. In the Airport menu at the top right of your screen, choose WLAN-PS and your icon should change to indicating that you are now wirelessly connected to the Print Server.

7. Open a web browser and type in the following address: http://192.168.0.10 and the D-Link configuration utility should load.

8. Choose the Configuration tab along the top and the Wireless button on the left.

9. Click the Site Survey button and you should see your wireless network listed. Jot down the settings for the next few steps.

10. Under Basic Settings, set the mode to Infrastructure, select your wireless network (SSID) name from the pull-down menu (mine is CocoaNet), and select your channel (my AirPort is set for Channel 11). Then click the Apply button. You should get a message saying that the print server is restarting.

11. Click the Configuration tab along the top and the Network button on the left.

12. Under TCP/IP Settings, assign your printer a static IP address within the range of addresses allowed by your wireless network, and again click the Apply button. I selected 10.0.1.10 simply because I wanted a number large enough that it wouldn't be assigned dynamically (I don't have 10 computers on my home network).

13. Back in System Preferences/Network, go back to your original network configuration, click Apply, and then choose your wireless network from the Airport menu as before.

14. Move the physical switch on the print server back to "Normal" mode.

15. Go to System Preferences/Print & Fax

16. Click the + button to add a printer.

17. For Protocol, select Line Printer Daemon - LPD

18. For Address, type in the static IP address you assigned to the printer. In my example, 10.0.1.10

19. Under Print Using, find the closest match to your printer and click the Add button.

20. You should now be able to print to your wireless printer from your Mac. If you found this helpful or have any suggestions, send me an e-mail at lmac@mac.com