latidotty,

 

To use a printer attached to a different computer, you will need to:

 

1.  Be sure that "File and Printer Sharing" is enabled on both computers.

2.  Be sure that the printer is "shared" on the computer to which it is connected

3.  On your laptop, open My Computer, then My Network Places, then View Workgroup Computers.

4.  Navigate to the computer which has the printer attached to it, double click it and click on the printer. 

 

Note: For this, I am assuming that both computers have Windows XP.  If one of them has Vista, and one has XP, there may be some additional steps needed.

 

Your laptop should then connect to the printer and will automatically install the needed driver files from the other computer.  You should then be able to print from your laptop computer across the network to the printer attached to the network. 

 

It is not as complicated as it seems, and there are a number of very good tutorials on setting up a home network available on the internet.  Here is one just for starters:

 

http://www.cnet.com/4520-7390_1-6213817-3.html?tag=tab

 

Steve