My new addiction is going through the Sunday CompUSA and Best Buy inserts in the Sunday newspaper and find the almost-free computer gear deals after rebates.

Today is was a Netgear print server which I have actually wanted for quite a while. (Well not the Netgear brand in particular, just a print server.) It is normally $65, but after a $55 rebate will only be $10.



We had our printer hooked up to the back of the computer I use most often. All of the other computers in the house have to direct their print jobs through that computer to get to the printer. That means that computer has to be on for any other computer to print to it.

A print server lets you plug the printer into it, and then you plug the print server into your router. When a computer sends a print job it goes from the computer to the router, and then from the router directs it to the printer server.

I was having problems getting it setup this afternoon when I brought it home. After a while I gave up and we went downstairs for some dinner and TV.

I gave it another shot when we came back upstairs and was successful. I did some Google searches and found someone that said when you are using the Add Printer Wizard to select "Add Local Printer" rather than "Add Network Printer" which seems totally counterintuitive, but it worked perfectly the first time.