Printing and Faxing
You can share with the network any printer
connected to a Windows computer with a standard USB or parallel printer
cable. Other computers can then reach the printer through the network,
as long as the host computer is turned on. However, if you need to put
a printer farther than about 10 feet away from a networked computer,
beyond the reach of a standard printer cable, you have three choices:
• Get a really long cable and take your
chances. The electrical signal for a USB or parallel printer connection
is not supposed to be extended more then 10 feet (but I’ve gotten away
with 25 feet in the past). Buy a high-quality shielded cable. You might
get data errors (bad printed characters) with this approach.
• Alternatively, you can buy a “print
server” module, which connects to the printer on one side and to a
network cable on the other, for about $40. Network supply catalogs list
myriad such devices. Some of the newer DSL/cable-sharing routers and
wireless access points have a print server built in.
• Use a network-capable printer and
connect it directly to your network. Some printers have Ethernet or
wireless networking capability built in. For some printers, you can buy
an add-on network printer module.
The latter two approaches are very nice
because any computer can “talk” directly to the printer. It doesn’t
require you to leave one computer turned on all the time. With standard
printer sharing, the computer that “owns” the printer must be turned on
in order for other computers to use the printer.
If several people on your network need to
send or receive faxes, you might want to set up a network-based faxing
system. Unfortunately, Windows 8 does not let you share your fax modem
with other users on your network, as Windows Server does. If you want
to share a single fax line with several users on your network, you have
to use a third-party solution. The easiest approach is to use a
“network-ready” all-in-one printer/scanner/fax unit. If you shop for
one of these, be sure that its faxing features are network compatible.
Note
I have an all-in-one laser
printer/scanner/fax/copier, and anyone on the network can use it to
print, send faxes, or scan documents. I love that part, and I got a
great deal on it, but its manual paper feed is terrible. Lesson
learned: read reviews before you buy!
Third-party software products are
available that can give network users shared access to a fax modem. The
former gold standard product was Symantec’s WinFax Pro, but it has been
discontinued, and most of the products still on the market seem to be
oriented toward large corporations. For a small office network, you
might consider products such as Snappy Fax Network Server from www.snappysoftware.com or ActFax from www.actfax.com.
Providing Internet Connectivity
One of the best reasons for having a network
is to share high-speed Internet service. It’s far less expensive, and
far safer security-wise, to have one connection to the Internet for the
entire LAN than to let each user fend for himself or herself. In fact,
many DSL and cable Internet providers now supply preconfigured routers
when you start your service—if that’s the case for you, you may only
need to configure your computers to use the shared connection.
Windows 8 has a built-in Internet Connection
Sharing feature that lets a single computer use a dial-up, cable, or
DSL modem and make the connection on behalf of any user on your LAN.
You can also use an inexpensive hardware device called a router
to make the connection. I strongly prefer the hardware devices over
Windows Internet Connection Sharing.
Providing Remote Access
You also can provide connectivity to your
network from the outside world, either through the Internet or via a
modem. This connectivity enables you to access your LAN resources from
home or out in the field, with full assurance that your network is safe
from outside attacks.
If you need to access your network
from outside and you aren’t planning to have a permanent direct
Internet connection, you might want to plan for the installation of a
telephone line near one of your Windows 8 computers so that you can set
up a dedicated modem line for incoming access.
Connecting to a Remote Network
You can tie your network to a
network in another location so that you and the other network’s users
can share files and printers as if you were all in the same room.
Windows Server has many features to support this, but you can also do
it with smaller networks without Windows Server. There are two
straightforward ways to do this: by getting routers that have built-in
Virtual Private Networking (VPN) support and by using a software
service. For a hardware approach, Linksys, Asus, Trendnet, and other
manufacturers sell inexpensive routers with VPN capability. The router
in one office is set up as the VPN “host” or server, and the routers in
other offices are set up to connect to that. This ties the separate
networks together. For a software solution, check out the Hamachi
product from logmein.com. You can tie individual computers into a VPN,
or you can set up one computer on each network to act as a “gateway.”
