Matthew's Journal

Christina, my fiancée, had one request for a Christmas gift this year: she wanted to be able to print from her laptop to my printer. I have a Dell 1700 black-and-white laser printer connected to my desktop computer via USB. My initial idea to meet this request was to buy a print server which would allow me to connect my printer to the computer network in our apartment and allow all computers on said network to use the printer. However, standalone print servers were either very expensive or very lacking in memory and features. By chance, my researching (i.e. shopping on eBay) yielded an alternate solution. Dell made an alternate version of my printer, the 1700n, which had a built in network card ready made for a networking environment. My eBay search found a replacement card for a Dell 1700n which just so happened to be the only component that was different between a Dell 1700 and a Dell 1700n. Thus, through the purchase of the card, the transplanting of the new card into my Dell 1700, and some driver reconfiguration, my Dell 1700 is now, in effect, a Dell 1700n. The network printing features work great and Christina is able to print from anywhere she can pick up our wireless network. She has been very pleased and I'm happy that I was able to upgrade my printer to a superior model with a more than $100 difference in MSRP for around $30.