O Brother, Where Art Thou?
About a week ago my Minolta QMS laser printer started to show signs of tiredness. To be precise, each page I would print exhibited slight yet permanent evidence of low toner. I have had this printer for almost 3 years now (bought it a while back on change I saved up over who knows how many months… not that I was poor or anything, just had a habit to dump change from my pockets to a can… and one day I decided to count how much I got there, and it turned out to be somewhere around $200… and that’s where all that change went to :) Anyways, during the lifetime of this printer I only had to replace the cartridge once… And now it appeared to be due for another replacement. However, since new cartridge would cost me around $70 anyways, I figured I might as well spring for a new printer instead. Besides, I wanted a network printer for quite some time now - always liked the idea to print from my laptop via home wi-fi, “no wires attached” :) Not that I really need that… I just like new toys :) Oops, did I just say that out loud ? ;-)
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After doing some research (well, mainly looking for any inexpensive network printers :) I zeroed in on this particular one due to a couple of reasons: 1) It was a refurbished model sold by staples for $149 with $20 mail-in rebate, which made it $129. 2) It was a network printer (with a built-in wired NIC), from a reputable brand - Brother, and to top things off - it had dual sided printing (it can print on both sides of each paper sheet). To make things even sweeter, my Chase Amazon VISA credit card sent me $25 cupon on any purchase I’d make over $100. |
Staples rebate on the printer was ending on July 6th, and that was exactly when my credit card’s cupon was kicking in… so first thing in the morning on Friday the 6th I completed online purchase order and became a proud owner of this terrific printing machine having paid only $109!! (That is, once I get my rebate back).
Printer arrived in timely manner (thanks UPS ;) as promised, on Tuesday afternoon. Installation was a breeze - I hooked it up to the local network, popped in setup CD into my PC, couple of clicks later the driver was loaded and a crispy steaming test page come out of the Brother. Apparently, the printer picked up an IP over DHCP broadcasted by my Linksys router, and installation software was able to find that IP automatically by scanning my local subnetwork. The printer has a built in web server, by connecting to which one can change/tweak any printer’s settings just like if it was connected directly to ones PC. It prints quite fast, and takes only 8 seconds after you hit “Print” button before the first page comes out.
Couple of days later though, while being logged into my company’s private network, I decided to print a piece of code for an off-line analysis (over lunch). I hit Print and patiently waited… and waited… and waited - the page never came out. I canceled the job and tried again - same story. And that’s when it hit me - I’m no longer part of my local subnetwork! I’m VPN’ed in! So how in the world am I gonna print now?
Fortunately, my printer was resting on the floor right next to my PC. So technically, I could patch it thru to my PC with a USB cable, but that would negate my dream of having a network printer and being able print from a laptop, over wi-fi, etc, etc, etc… Besides, the whole network thing would render absolutely useless… So I desperately was looking for a solution, and finally something quite obvious occured to me - I connected my PC to the printer with a USB cord, leaving the printer connected to the network as well. I defined another printer on my PC - this time on a local port. I called it Brother Local, and renamed previous (networked) connection to Brother Networked. Now, whenever I’m VPN’ed in - I print via local (USB) connection, and at the same time, the printer is still accessible from the network, should I ever need to use it from my laptop. To my pleasant surprise, Brother HL-5250DN works just fine with both connections being active simultaneously!