You can NOT be SERIOUS! (Sorry, John McEnroe)

And sorry to even be mentioning either the quasi-closed network at the North Kansas City Public Library or what I consider to be its least valuable component here once again, but whenever we come across something that could conceivably put you at risk, duty calls and we're obligated to point out the danger and suggest ways to protect yourself.

Well, your humble correspondent just has come across such a something while I was making my latest periodic scan of the local public library websites for changes. Seems NKCPL not only hasn't given up on flogging its Windows-only wireless printing capability, but it's now openly suggesting that you-are you ready for this?-enable file and printer sharing on your laptop just to make use of this dubious feature.

Memo to whomever is running the show up there: It just so happens that there's a dadgum good reason that file and printer sharing isn't enabled by default on a laptop running either Windows 7 or Vista, as you point out-having it enabled on a public network (i.e., any network other than the user's home network or one provided by his or her employer) is dangerous. And guess what else is dangerous? How about the user forgetting to turn it off after he or she is finished using your network and then going onto another open network with it still on?

Frankly, I'm still skeptical that enough people with laptops or other mobile devices either need or want to print away from home anymore (especially if they have to pay for the privilege) to justify NKCPL's continuing to offer this "service" in the first place. On the outside chance I'm wrong about that, however, here's a couple of alternate suggestions that won't open you up to an intrusion or malware attack.

First, in WIndows try printing to your default printer-even though it's not connected. Exactly how you'll proceed from here depends on whether the printer is usually directly connected to your computer (i.e., via a USB or parallel cable) or if it's a network printer. If it's directly connected simply go into the print queue (Start->Settings->Printers and Faxes, then double-click the printer in XP; Start->Control Panel->Printers, then do the same thing in Vista), click the "Printer" menu and then check the "Use printer offline" menu item. Then go ahead and send the jobs to the printer as normal. The jobs should begin to print automatically when you get home and reconnect the printer; if they don't you may need to manually uncheck the offline option to get them to start.

Unfortunately, unless the manufacturer has added it as a special feature accessible through the driver, the offline option isn't available for most network printers. In this case you can get away with sending the print job to the printer anyway, then going into the print queue as above and clicking the "Documents" menu. Click "Pause printing" to hold the job until you're back on your home network. Once you are, click "Resume" and the jobs should fire away; if not try the "Restart" option. I've never known one or the other not to work.

Second, if you have Microsoft Office installed, you should have a virtual printer available (in XP it's called the "Microsoft Office Document Writer") which will convert a print job sent to it into an Office document you can save for later printing. If you've bought the full version of Adobe Acrobat you can do the same thing by sending the job to the "Adobe PDF" pseudo-printer it installs on your machine.

And should anyone wonder why we Macintoshers don't really feel left out when it comes to these Windows-only pay-to-print-away-from-home installations, it's because we don't need them. We don't even need to buy the extra software Windows users do in order to exercise the second option above, owing to OS X's native PDF support.

Finally, if I am wrong about the demand for wireless printing up at NKCPL, here's hoping they'll take this as a cue not to stop offering it, but instead to fix it so users aren't put at unnecessary risk. Laptop users can print wirelessly at home or at work without sharing files; they can do it away from home as well. It's simple, folks: If your current solution can't accommodate that, do what good stewardship of public resources demands. Get tough with that vendor and demand that either they fix or replace what they sold you, or that they buy it back so you can purchase something else that works, and works right.