I work from home and had a reliable setup til yesterday. My router hiccuped and dumped its encryption. I can use my computer on the unencrypted link but my wireless printer won't recognize the router. I attempted to troubleshoot and found that I need to connect my computer to the router. I use a MacAir. It only has usb ports. The linksys router is several years old and only has ethernet ports. What do I do?

And in the mean time, is there some way to get my printer to recognize the unencrypted wireless signal? I'm really struggling without it. I have a Brother HL-2270DW. I've read their online instructions. It appears to require a direct connection to the linksys or perhaps to my computer, neither of which I can figure out. I have no cable to direct connect the computer and the printer.

Based on what I read it sounds like you just need a USB cable and connect the printer to your computer and configure from there.
http://www.solveyourtech.com/how-to-...ther-hl2270dw/

To connect to your router over wireless make sure you are connected to the wireless network and open your browser and go to 192.168.1.1
Really it's better to be wired in, but it's possible to do a few things wirelessly. If you change the SSID and such you'll have to reconnect on the new SSID to continue.
Default user names:

Linksys BEFW11S4, WRT54G: admin
Linksys EtherFast Cable/DSL Ethernet routers: Administrator
Linksys Comcast routers: comcast
All other Linksys routers: [none]

Default passwords:

Linksys BEFW11S4: [none]
Linksys Comcast routers: 1234
All other Linksys routers: admin

Why do you need to plug the computer into the router? Using the existing working unencrypted link you should be able to restablish the encrypted signal.

I wish that helped, but it didn't.

I found that we have a second printer (husband's home office). He has a printer cord that will connect the printer and the computer.

I also found I have an ethernet to USB cord.

First, I was hoping to set the printer up to recognize the unencrypted wireless signal. When I go thru the directions, they seem to leap to set it up with an enrypted hub which I don't currently have. I don't know enough for the directions to make sense.

When I open the printer preferences on the Mac, it shows that I have the printer driver installed but cannot find the printer.

How? Please talk me thru this at the 1st grade level. OK, maybe 5th grade.

Is it part of Network Preferences/WiFi/Proxies?

No. launch your browser and type: http://192.168.1.1
use the userID/passwords listed above. What kind of security were you using before? Turn it back on and reset your password.

Type that into the top of the page, where it currently says "www.flyertalk.com/forum/ (etc)".

And what I assume you are saying is something like this:
*You had secured wifi using WPA/WPA2/WEP, something like that which meant there was some password or key securing your wifi
*I'm assuming your router reset itself and thus went back to the default SSID (usually linksys) and the wifi security was removed thus making it an open hotspot
*the printer is looking for something with an SSID for whatever you had before and since it doesn't find it, it doesn't connect. Your mac, on the other hand, lets you choose your hotspot so you can connect.

so:
You can watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhNAsnqnHWc
1. connect to 192.168.1.1 and use the appropriate userid/password for your router.
2. go to the Wireless section, set the SSID and turn on the wifi security you had on before. If you use the same SSID, same security type, and same key/password your printer should connect just fine.
3. if you have no clue what your old WIFI security was or what the password/key was then just set it to something new (I like WPA2). Save, wait for it to process, then reconnect to your router on the new SSID, go back to 192.168.1.1 and login again if you need to change anything else.
4. connect your printer to your mac using a USB cord and follow the setup to tell it the new SSID and key/password and you should be good to go.

Have you tried doing a hard reset of the router? How about updating the firmware?

Thank you, every one of you who tried to help me. That was not easy nor was it intuitive. I made it to the point where I told the software to enable the security and that hosed it. I then couldn't see the router online nor did I know what key it used. I did a hard reset of the modem. To cut thru several chapters, the person who set up the network for us years ago called. With his help, I was able to restore the security and then copy and paste the old encryption key to the system. I had to wire into the linksys, then I had to connect between the printer and my computer. But it's done.

Now, I can return to work on my FlyerTalk work actions for the day. Whew.

Don't forget to write down: (a) what kit you needed (and where you keep it) and (b) instructions that _you_ understand, while things are still fresh in your memory.

This sort of meltdown of IT can happen more than once!

Routers are cheap.