Re: new printer: USB or network?

[Camaleón <noelamac@gmail.com>]

On Thu, 31 Dec 2009 11:27:32 -0500, Steve Kleene wrote:

> 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 will not have any doubt about it: I'd follow the network path. I find 
USB bus to be more unreliable than ethernet.
 
> 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.

Can't you change that? I mean, if your printer has an embedded newtork 
adpater and your computer have a network card, just change both IP 
addresses at your convenience.

Or is there something that impedes you for doing this (company policy, 
etc...)?
 
> 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.

I think I don't fully understand your network environment and 
restrictions. Never heard before that one has to pay for getting a local/
internal IP address :-?

Can you please expand that a bit?

Greetings,

-- 
Camaleón