Usb laser printing, HD's with integral hubs, and open doors to network?

Question

Bought a N capable base station and an airport express this week as I have multiple minis and a macbook and wish to put my itunes onto a central drive and use wireless printing.
Spent an “interesting” evening last night setting up, and I seem to have worked out how to use itunes via aliases etc.
But – when I try to print, the dialogue box comes up, the laser printer (Samsung 2550) starts up, but fails to print.
My set up is as follows – Iomega 320gb mini HD (powered) plugged into the USB on the base station and then the laser and my inkjet plugged into the USB sockets on the HD (its one of those which has an integral USB and FW hub built in).
Now, as it was very late in the evening, I didn’t do any more trouble shooting, but am intrigued as to why the printer would not print. The log says that the print job has been completed, but nothing comes out. I disconnected the printers from the hd hub and then disconnected the HD. I then plugged the printer directly into the base station, but it still doesn’t work.
Annoyingly enough, the printer worked fine the previous night when I was using it with the usb on the airport express alone (hadn’t bought the base station at this point).
The computer(s) “see” the laser printer without difficulty, so I see no reason why it should not print using the base station.
One thing which occurs to me is to plug a powered USB hub into the base station, and then separately plug the HD and the Laser into sockets on this hub, rather than using the integral hub of the HD. Again, I cant see why this should be necessary but I’ll give it a try.
Any thoughts re this?
One Last Thing…
The main reason for buying the kit is to cover a “weak spot” in the house for wifi. Hence the idea was to connect my modem/router via Ethernet to the base station, and then use the airport express as a WDS to effectively re-broadcast the signal and hopefully provide maximum signal strength throughout the house.
My question is – having used the airport utility to do this, am I right in presuming that the airport express then becomes effectively “invisible” and hence when I use my mini in the weak spot to log onto a network via airport, I should only see the SSID of my main base station (although in reality I will be accessing it via the airport express). I think this must be right because when I added the airport express the signal strength in the weak area of the house went to the max.
My base station uses WAP protection but I don’t appear to have any protection set up on the airport express (which I realise is a router in its own right). Do I need to add protection to the airport express to prevent access to my overall network? In otherwords, is an unprotected airport express acting as a WDS, effectively an open back door to the network? Would a neighbour etc be able to pick up my network SSID being broadcast by the airport express and log onto that without the WAP password?
Finally what is the difference between the airport express being a remote or a relay station. I would have thought that to act as a network extender, it should be set to relay, but the default appears to be remote. The Apple help sections don’t appear to distinguish between functionality, merely state the options.
Any help/advice gratefully accepted
Airport extreme, mac minis    

Answer 1

I then plugged the printer
directly into the base station, but it still doesn’t
work.
You need to get this to work first. Otherwise forget it to work with a Hub. Turn the printer on FIRST. Then turn on the base station.
One thing which occurs to me is to plug a powered USB
hub into the base station, and then separately plug
the HD and the Laser into sockets on this hub, rather
than using the integral hub of the HD. Again, I cant
see why this should be necessary but I’ll give it a
try.
Direct connection and powered USB Hub are the only supported configurations by Apple. I've had no problem with attaching up to 7 separate devices on a $20 powered hub. Having a "integrated hub" like you describe may theoretically work, but it is not the same thing as a separate hub.
My question is – having used the airport utility to
do this, am I right in presuming that the airport
express then becomes effectively “invisible” and
hence when I use my mini in the weak spot to log onto
a network via airport, I should only see the SSID of
my main base station (although in reality I will be
accessing it via the airport express).
If you use WDS or "extend" the network, all base stations will still broadcast the SSID.
My base station uses WAP protection
You must mean WEP or WPA. There is no WAP protection.
but I don’t
appear to have any protection set up on the airport
express (which I realize is a router in its own
right). Do I need to add protection to the airport
express to prevent access to my overall network? In
other words, is an unprotected airport express acting
as a WDS, effectively an open back door to the
network? Would a neighbor etc be able to pick up my
network SSID being broadcast by the airport express
and log onto that without the WAP password?
Yes, even if you turn SSID broadcast off, the SSID is broadcasted during the transactions and it will be easily detected using iStumbler. An yes you are letting a nice open back door for your neighbors.