[X-Newbies] Networking

[Chris Walker]

On 15/9/04 Cyril Blanc wrote: 

>the easy way is to use Rendez vous !!!
>it does everything for you
>I have just installed an HP Color Laserjet 2550 on 4 MAC, a dream
!...........

You are so right!  I installed an LJ 2100 in the same way; the Mac picked
it up, gave it an address and off we went - no fuss, no bother.  I then
came to the PC with Win 2000.  To say that it is not intuitive is to put
it mildly.  It took me ages to realise that you have to set up a separate
port before it will print via the network.

This was the reason for the inquiry about DHCP.  Since, for the PC's
benefit you need to specify an IP address, clearly with DHCP this could
vary according to the order that the machines are switched on; wouldn't
matter for the computers but the printer might not be  be where the PC
expected it.  Hence it seemed easier to give everything a fixed IP.

The other printer (Epson C60) is connected via a Linksys 4 port switch
with a USB socket which is supposed to act as a print server.  So far
this has put about 10 years on me and still won't work, either from the
Mac - which looks for a direct USB connection and can't find it either by
appletalk or (unsurprisingly) Rendezvous, or from the PC.  It's about
ready to die, so it might get replaced by a proper networkable printer -
most likely an HP since Epson printers as a whole seem rather short on
networking, unless you go for the serious high end stuff.

Thanks for the advice,

Chris