Rated 
It works great...after a lot of work with setup
Started Oct 12, 2005
Strengths: -hasn't failed once since getting it up and running -wpa using psk and tkip -802.11g -nice industrial design
Weaknesses: -setup was laborious for mac
so i went out and got this print server mainly b/c it used 802.11g and wpa-psk, the same as my home network. i got it from circuit city for $100 but have $50 in rebates coming to me in the mail. i was a bit hesitant at first b/c my router and network cards are SMC but i figured i'd give this netgear number a go since the company has a good reputation and at half off, it was quite a deal.
i use a winXP pc and my wife uses a mac. initially, i tried to setup my pc using the internet method. but i found that did not work b/c SMC uses a different default gateway than what is expected of netgear products. so to my dismay, i had to use the setup wizard on the included CD.
the setup wizard worked surprisingly well. however, when i got done with the setup, i noticed that i had plugged the printer into port 2 on the print server. so, i thought, why not just plug it into port 1 seeing as i only have 1 printer at this point in time. when i switched the plugs, everything stopped working. i figured, ok, i just need run the setup wizard for port 1.
well, i did just that and long story short, nothing worked, not even when i plugged the printer back into port 2!!! eventually, i figured out through much trial and error that i cannot install the same printer for both ports. in general, i don't know why one would ever do such a thing, but hey maybe there's someone else out there like me? so first revelation- don't install the same printer for both ports.
onto my wife's computer. first of all, netgear does not guarentee compatability with macs, even though there are many people out there, even reviewers on this website, that have gotten it to work with their macs. so i figured i should be one of them as well. yeah, well it took even longer than my pc experience.
the first problem was that since netgear does not claim compatability with macs, they have no instruction in their included manual nor the CD nor their website on how to get it to work with a mac. i had to web search and fortunately for me, i was able to find the solution (see http://www.cups.org/articles.php?L317).
but the solution was much more tricky than i could have imagined. the tricky part is that you have to set up a connection using the "lpd" protocol. eventually, i came up with this port name-
lpd://192.168.2.199/L1
where L1 is for port 1 and the IP address is the static address assigned to the print server in the initial setup.
for those of you curious, this is presumably the same way you would setup a linux box to communicate with the print server as well...
personally, i think this is a little too technical for any unsuspecting person with what i would consider a pretty typical setup. but, i'm happy i got it to all work. and since getting it to work, the print server has worked flawlessly. i even have it tucked away in the corner near the printer in a room that does not have line-of-sight to the router and i still get 60+% signal. not one single dropped print job. and my wife is a teacher so she's constantly printing stuff off for her classes.
i'm very happy with this purchase. but only 4 stars b/c of the extended trouble with setup. admittedly, i never called customer support, which is rumored to be very good. call me stubborn.
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