Printing Over Airport

With the advent of Leopard and perhaps the 5.7 version of Airport firmware, there are some problems printing using the wireless system.  They can manifest a couple of different ways, including:

• Time Capsules "lose" the printer every so often;
• Airport Extreme Base Stations print the first document through them, but freeze on the first page of the second document.

I got a Time Capsule to encourage my wife to make backups, and it replaced a first or second generation Airport Extreme Base Station (the one that looks like a spaceship).  Unfortunately, it exhibited the first behaviour listed above.  So today I add the Airport Extreme Base Station (hereafter AEBS) to the network and hooked my Samsung ML-2150 laser printer to the AEBS instead of the Time Capsule.

Whereupon it exhibited the second behaviour listed above.

After much testing and cursing and installing of drivers, I came to the following fix: by using IP addressing instead of Bonjour, I don't lose the printer.  The step by step procedure is:

1. Bring up your System Preferences...
2. Select 'Print & Fax'
3. Click on the '+' to add a printer
4. Click on the 'IP' icon
5. Select 'HP Jetdirect - Socket' from the Protocol dropdown (it defaults to 'Line Printer Daemon - LPD')
6. Put the IP address of the AEBS in the 'Address' box
7. Leave the 'Queue' box blank
8. Put whatever name you want into the 'Name' box -- it will default to the IP address
9. Select your desired print driver from the 'Print Using:' dropdown which defaults to 'Select a driver of printer model'
10. Click 'Add'

As a side note, if you have an ML-2150 and you lost long-edge bound duplex printing at some point, the gutenprint 5.2.3 version restores it.