new printer: USB or network?

[Steve Kleene <skdeb@syrano.acb.uc.edu>]

In a recent thread ("can't get CUPS working with Xerox Phaser 6280DN"), the
question arose whether I should connect to the Phaser via USB or network.
USB has two clear disadvantages:

  1. It is slower.
  2. Talking to the Phaser on USB from my VMware XP client crashes the
     client.

I now have all of this working on a Netgear hub, and (as expected) there's
one thing I don't like about it.  I can no longer access the PC from anywhere
outside the local hub.  Within my company, my Ethernet connection has an IP
10.97.8.XXX.  Before today, any machine connecting to that IP got the PC and
nothing else.  Now the PC is 192.168.0.2 within the local network and is
unavailable to other PCs on the 10.X.X.X company network.

One solution would be to get a second IP and jack, but my company charges
more than I want to pay.  A second would be to use a separate NIC for the
Phaser.  However, people at the VMware forum say it's tricky to pull this
off.  In theory I might also be able to put a VPN server on the PC, but I
hope to avoid having to use VPN for every connection.

I'd appreciate any suggestions on how to make my now very local machine
accessible from the company network.

Thanks.