Computer guru's, a question about wifi:

So I get one of my son's a printer for christmas. A nice Canon. I knew his comp had a wifi dongle plug in cause I bought it for him months ago.

I get as far as having the comp, desktop Win 7, look for the canon printer, can't find it. Says unable to connect to internet. I knew my son was too poor to be able to afford internet ATT, but I thought the wifi dongle would be able to wirelessly connect printer and comp.

That didn't happen, it just kept saying ' can't connect to internet'.

The question is, can't a stand alone wireless module connect to a printer regardless of not having internet? Do you HAVE to have an internet connection to be able to use wifi on other stuff?

The problem was the canon provided an AC power cord, two ink carts, the driver CD and a quick hook up guide, but no mini USB to full size USB connect. You know the mini, it is a squarish shaped plug that most printers use. But Canon did not see fit to include that cable so I could not get his printer to work. I was trying to make a complete christmas present work on christmas but no such luck. The really sucky part was, if I had known about the printer not having the USB cable, I have at least three of the dam things in my house, I could have just grabbed one, but NOOO.......
It just seems cheap of Canon not to provide a silly cable.

What has having or not having internet have to do with wifi.

Well, ok, one thing, no router. And of course, no modem. But why can't they communicate in spite of that?

Maybe it needs a router hooked up to the comp? Confused here.

Originally posted by sonhouse
So I get one of my son's a printer for christmas. A nice Canon. I knew his comp had a wifi dongle plug in cause I bought it for him months ago.

I get as far as having the comp, desktop Win 7, look for the canon printer, can't find it. Says unable to connect to internet. I knew my son was too poor to be able to afford internet ATT, but I thought the wifi ...[text shortened]... y communicate in spite of that?

Maybe it needs a router hooked up to the comp? Confused here.

Never tried it, but sounds like the key terminology is ad hoc wireless connection. See if you can find a reference to it in the manual for the printer.

Also take a look at the following:
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-networking/ad-hoc-wireless-connection-to-a-printer/4dd19baa-3d04-4037-9487-433ec293a8dc?auth=1

Let me know what you end up doing.

Originally posted by sonhouse
So I get one of my son's a printer for christmas. A nice Canon. I knew his comp had a wifi dongle plug in cause I bought it for him months ago.

I get as far as having the comp, desktop Win 7, look for the canon printer, can't find it. Says unable to connect to internet. I knew my son was too poor to be able to afford internet ATT, but I thought the wifi ...[text shortened]... y communicate in spite of that?

Maybe it needs a router hooked up to the comp? Confused here.

He needs a router for the components to be able to talk to each other. The router does not need to be connected to the internet. They might be able to communicate via Bluetooth in the meantime.

Originally posted by sonhouse
Maybe it needs a router hooked up to the comp? Confused here.

It could get complicated. To start with does the printer have WiFi? (not all printers do).

As others have said, having a router would definitely make it easier and may turn out to be necessary .

The basic catch 22 problem is that the printer needs to know your wifi settings (SSID and if you have security, security settings and password). Many modern WiFi devices have a button (known as WPS) which you press on both devices and they automatically figure out the settings. If the dongle is fairly new it should have one, and so should the printer. However, as far as I know this doesn't support ad-hoc mode.

If the printer has a screen and menus (I rather doubt it as it is most likely a cheap home user one) then you could tell it the settings with that. Otherwise you either need the special button or you need to tell the printer the settings via the cable (the catch 22 I mentioned earlier).

Originally posted by sonhouse
So I get one of my son's a printer for christmas. A nice Canon. I knew his comp had a wifi dongle plug in cause I bought it for him months ago.

I get as far as having the comp, desktop Win 7, look for the canon printer, can't find it. Says unable to connect to internet. I knew my son was too poor to be able to afford internet ATT, but I thought the wifi ...[text shortened]... y communicate in spite of that?

Maybe it needs a router hooked up to the comp? Confused here.

It could if it had Bluetooth capability then you wouldn't need an Internet connection as the PC/laptop and the Bluetooth device would be able to connect directly. Have you checked for Bluetooth capability?

edit: sorry i see Deepthought has already mentioned this.

Originally posted by robbie carrobie
It could if it had Bluetooth capability then you wouldn't need an Internet connection as the PC/laptop and the Bluetooth device would be able to connect directly. Have you checked for Bluetooth capability?

edit: sorry i see Deepthought has already mentioned this.

Thanks for the replies. I guess the common theme here is it needs a router. I have a few of them floating about.

The wifi dongle on the desktop is just that, no buttons, just a wifi unit the size of a wireless mouse dongle now, maybe 5 mmX3mmX2 mm or so. But I know it connects but naively thought the two would connect. The printer definitely has wifi but it doesn't say anything about bluetooth so I am pretty sure I am stuck there.

So the first thing to do to get the thing up and running is to just use the USB cord. I found one in my house after I got home. Nothing was open on Christmas day, K mart, Lowes, Walmart, so couldn't get it going on Christmas like I had hoped.

Originally posted by sonhouse
Thanks for the replies. I guess the common theme here is it needs a router. I have a few of them floating about.

The wifi dongle on the desktop is just that, no buttons, just a wifi unit the size of a wireless mouse dongle now, maybe 5 mmX3mmX2 mm or so. But I know it connects but naively thought the two would connect. The printer definitely has wifi but ...[text shortened]... n Christmas day, K mart, Lowes, Walmart, so couldn't get it going on Christmas like I had hoped.

Actually. you don't need a router if your printer supports ad hoc wireless or WI-FI Direct and chances are that it supports one or both. RTFM

Read through the article at this link for a good general overview of the options for connecting a wireless printer:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2411967,00.asp

Then read through the link I provided earlier for details.

Originally posted by sonhouse
The wifi dongle on the desktop is just that, no buttons, just a wifi unit the size of a wireless mouse dongle now, maybe 5 mmX3mmX2 mm or so. But I know it connects but naively thought the two would connect.

The button may be very hard to see. I just checked my dongle and it does have one that you would not notice if you weren't looking for it.

Originally posted by ThinkOfOne
Actually. you don't need a router if your printer supports ad hoc wireless or WI-FI Direct and chances are that it supports one or both.

He is still going to need to hook up a cable to get the settings onto the printer. But unless both the printer and computer will never be moved, it would be nice to get the wifi working even if a cable is available. I agree with you that a router may not be necessary.

Now, the next question will be whether the drivers for the printer came with it, or are native to windows, or will he need internet to get the printer drivers These days everyone assumes you have internet. My pet peeve is when you buy a game on a set of DVDs on its release date, then it wants to immediately download a 20Gb update before you can play it (which can take days if your internet isn't all that fast).

I am having some trouble getting aircrack-ng to work on this particular machine, if anyone knows anything about it let me know

ARP linktype is set to 1 (Ethernet) - expected ARPHRD_IEEE80211,
ARPHRD_IEEE80211_FULL or ARPHRD_IEEE80211_PRISM instead. Make
sure RFMON is enabled: run 'airmon-ng start wlan0 <#>'
Sysfs injection support was not found either.

Originally posted by twhitehead
He is still going to need to hook up a cable to get the settings onto the printer. But unless both the printer and computer will never be moved, it would be nice to get the wifi working even if a cable is available. I agree with you that a router may not be necessary.

Now, the next question will be whether the drivers for the printer came with it, or a ...[text shortened]... a 20Gb update before you can play it (which can take days if your internet isn't all that fast).

The printer came with a full CD of drivers so that is not a problem, I think. Still have to work with it with cable first I think, then figure out Wifi.

Originally posted by sonhouse
The printer came with a full CD of drivers so that is not a problem, I think. Still have to work with it with cable first I think, then figure out Wifi.

So I just went with cable, will figure out wifi later. Printer works fine.

Another question, about Open Office. Can you download it to a CD so I can install it on their comp, they don't have internet as of yet.

Originally posted by sonhouse
So I just went with cable, will figure out wifi later. Printer works fine.

Another question, about Open Office. Can you download it to a CD so I can install it on their comp, they don't have internet as of yet.

Dont have Internet??? look dude, get a copy of aircrack-ng, scan the airways for RF signals, identify your neighbours MAC address, monitor it and collect data, issue a de authentication command, capture the WPA/WPA2 handshake and bust the WPA/WPA2 security and use that to log onto your neighbors Wifi

Failing that I am sure that you could simply download all the files for Apache open office onto a disc and install it. To do it on a linux machine is dead easy, don't know about Windows though.

Are you planning on downloading and burning the ISO image?

Originally posted by robbie carrobie
Dont have Internet??? look dude, get a copy of aircrack-ng, scan the airways for RF signals, identify your neighbours MAC address, monitor it and collect data, issue a de authentication command, capture the WPA/WPA2 handshake and bust the WPA/WPA2 security and use that to log onto your neighbors Wifi

Failing that I am sure that you could simply ...[text shortened]... , don't know about Windows though.

Are you planning on downloading and burning the ISO image?

RC shows his blatant hypocrisy once again. If nothing else, he's consistent.

Chances are you're reading this article because you suspect someone is piggybacking or using your WiFi without your permission. When wireless squatters steal your WiFi, they eat up your bandwidth. In extreme cases, they may even steal information off your computer or infect machines on your network with a virus.
http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/how-to-tech/how-to-detect-stealing-wifi.htm

Mark 10
19 You know the commandments: ‘Do not murder, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor your father and mother.

This is my son's comp and they are very poor and do not have internet ATT. I thought about getting an antenna that does hook to someone's wifi but first I will try to download here.

I gather you need an image, I thought it had to be an executable. How do you do that bit?