Posted by Grant Foraker on August 01, 2005 at 08:12:26:
In Reply to: CometAnywhere posted by Frank S on July 30, 2005 at 10:19:57:
Method 1a:
If the remote office is connected via the Internet, publish the remote printers to the Internet. This gets very "networky" (firewalls, NAT, and all that) so I'd advise getting help from an MSCE or equivalent. Once that half is done, then install the two printers on the CometAnywhere host. Again, this half is a little less complicated but you'll still need help. Now all remote receipt and laser print jobs go direcly to the desired printer and CometAnywhere's print features are bypassed.
Method 1b:
If the remote office is connected via a leased line or VPN, then publish (share) the printers to the network. Install the two printers on the CometAnywhere workstation. As above, the printers now appear to be "local" and you bypass the CometAnywhere.
Method 2:
At the remote site there are two printers. If there are two or more workstations, then this all Comet method might work for you. The print jobs must be old style and not Windows style. Normally, print jobs are "pushed" out to the printer. This method uses the remote workstations to "pull" the print jobs to the remote site for printing.
Define the two remote printers as Auto spooling. This means that every print job is always soooled. So, if the remote connection or workstation is out, the print jobs stack up in the spooler.
Train the remote users on how to use QSPOOL to start a despooling job for the spooler/printer they "manage". They can do this periodically or let the spooler run in forever mode. Then any new jobs will flow to the printer.
If you use forever mode and the connection is broken, the QSPOOL linkage to the workstation and the printer is permanently broken. Since QSPOOL2 remains running in background on the CometAnywhere host, it needs to be KILLed before a new spooler/printer will sucessfully start. And, there is a slight delay in the flow of the print as QSPOOL will go to sleep when it has finished printing and may take 10-30 seconds before it awakes to handle a new job.
The company I did this for wanted the process automated. So, I used QSTARTX to automate the process. The remote office closed but I still have the programs around.