Summary: 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.

Summary: I got this print server to allow both an Intel and a PowerPc Mac to print wirelessly, as well as a GNU/Linux client using CUPS. (In fact, I don't even have a working Windows PC to test with it.) There are instructions available on Netgear's website to get it working with Tiger and that's enough to tell you that it uses lpd and the two queues are called L1 and L2 and from there GNU/Linux setup is a breeze.

Initial setup can be frustrating because it expects your wireless network to be called NETGEAR and to operate in the 192.168.0.x range. I have a nearby neighbor whose router is called NETGEAR and my network is 192.168.1.x, so I had to connect the device directly to my router with an ethernet cable (after switching my router to temporarily use 192.168.0.x) and connect a laptop directly to the WGPS606 to change the expected network name and default IP address on the WGPS606.

I'm currently sharing a Samsung ML-1740 laser printer and having trouble sharing an HP PSC-1350, even though it is listed as a supported printer. If I can get the second printer working, it's a 5-star product. Until then, it's 4-stars.

Summary: Wireless bridges seem to be expensive for some reason, but this one is priced really cheap for one that supports 4 ethernet connections and 2 USB printer connections.

There is only one other brand that connects 4 computers, but I was not familiar with the name and it only supports 1 printer, not 2.

The biggest problem I had, was everybody seemed to be out of stock when I was trying buy this a couple months ago.

The setup went fairly easy.
For some strange reason my computer did not automatically get an IP from the Netgear before I ran the setup CD, but it didn't matter as the setup software located the Netgear, and my computer had no trouble communicating with it.

The first step is to configure the print server with the wireless and printer. This went flawlessly.

The next step was to setup the print server and computer. I got confused on the last part. You are supposed to select a printer and click finish. The printer was already selected, but \"Finish\" was grayed out. I had to click on \"Add\" which then brought up a Windows dialog box asking for me to select a manufacturer/printer and location of drivers. I thought this odd, as I already had the drivers installed. I chose \"Windows Update\" as location of drivers and after a while I was able to click on finish and print a test page. But, I don't think the driver install did anything, as the next Windows dialog box did not list my printer. The Netgear setup software bringing up the Windows install drivers dialog box might be a bug that happens with Windows 2000, or might only be appropriate if you don't already have the printer drivers installed.

Other than that, my computer plugged into it was able to access the internet no problem, and after I disconnected the ethernet cable, I was able to print to the server wirelessly without trouble. It was one of the easier wireless setups I've done.

This device is definately worth getting, as it does a whole lot at a fantastic price.