Because Vito uses a MAC, for option 1 he would also need a USB-Serial convertor as MAC's dont have serial ports for the null modem cable to plug into.

Option 2 is fine, but obviously will need a PC to do it on.

The error you probably made was forgetting to change the broadcast address from 192.168.2.255 to 192.168.1.255 while you were changing the IP address to a different subnet.

Peter.