Driving While Printing. Printing While You Fly. And Web Printing.
Okay. So I have racked my pea-brain to come up with the list of features and benefits to consider when thinking of mobile printing, or MP (Okay, I made that up, so don’t go looking it up). Mobile printing — small-M, small-P — has its benefits. Your employees or customers should have the freedom to print docs (not me), emails and Web content in full-color from Internet enabled laptops, cell phones and handheld devices. And they should not have to download drivers or install additional software. Let me try to break down the features and their benefits to think about, so when you talk to your boss, you’ll seem much smarter.
iPhone, Palm Pre, Blackberry, etc.
Mobile plus handheld printing. You should be able to forward any email from PDAs or Internet-enabled cell phones – with or without attachments – to a printer’s email address.
Driverless Web-based printing ability. Users should be able to surf to a printer’s URL using any browser, and upload a file or enter an URL of what’s to be printed. After submitting each request, the service automatically replies to an email address with a secure release code. At the keypad attached to the printer, the user then enters the code to release their print job.
Simple installation. Find a turnkey system that can be self-configuring and ready to print from anywhere in minutes. Internet Access is all that one should need.
Totally embedded. All printer hardware enhancements should be preconfigured; all software should be pre-loaded; no additional support should be required. That means no external appliances and no way for users to accidentally change system settings or access other jobs.
Strong data encryption. All print jobs should be encrypted and transferred using 128-bit secure SSL communications.
Secure mobile printing. After printing, every job should be automatically erased from printer memory so you don’t have to worry about unauthorized reprinting.
Flexibility. You should be able use the mobile printing solution as a free client convenience to hold on to customers — or as a fee-based printing service to increase revenues, if you are a super capitalist.
Customizable interfaces. The solution should incorporate logos and colors on the Web page to reflect your business identity and present printing as a value-added service exclusive to your establishment.
Add links and custom messages. You should be able to customize the user interface to add links to other websites, add new printers or insert new screens for additional services, print job options and job confirmation/approval steps.
Support for 3rd party billing systems. The mobile printing solution provider should be partnering with the likes of Printer On and Web Pay Services (WPS) to enable hosted billing solutions so that the system can count the number of pages, calculate the job cost, and initiate a credit card billing sequence.
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ZDNet introduces Doc (The DocuMentor), sponsored by RICOH. Through his blog, Doc will educate you about Document Management. So who is Doc? Doc is something of an enigma. He was born to a Russian ballerina and a German electrical engineer who some believe was running covert operations for shadowy corporate interests. Doc grew up in various locations in the United States, although no one seems to know precisely where, least of all Doc. His early schooling was unremarkable except for the time he was caught trying to replace all the mimeograph machines with high-tech color copiers that had mysteriously disappeared from a shipment to Albania. At MIT, he made a name for himself by transforming a large printer into a robot that hunts and eats Roombas. Professionally, he reportedly has seen the insides of more brands, versions, and generations of printer and printer-related hardware than almost anyone. Some say his obsession with paper, printing, and mechanical movement was either started by, or evidenced by, a traumatic childhood episode when he crawled inside an old Xerox 2400 and tried to print himself.
Anyway, Doc has hands on experience with stuff like printer maintenance and fleet management, but his mastery of document management leaves no stone unturned. Important issues like sustainability, security, and regulatory compliance are top of mind for Doc, as are other business technology needs like networking and IT services, making him a true blue IT renaissance man.
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Once you get beyond that, there must be a driver somewhere that does the conversion from dots on the screen of a device (PC/PDA/phone/whatever) to dots (ink or toner) on the paper of a printer.
If you print a page from a server, then the server could determine what was needed to print its displayed page on the destination printer. That may require a new protocol so the web server can talk to the remote printer controller to determine its capabilities and create a proper file format for transmission to that printer, along with security code and/or job owner identification. The "printer" being talked to is actually a server, so print jobs can be queued and owner identification associated with each print request.
Proably not that difficult, as print requests with owner ID info attached have been around for years. Getting the details together for the common printer that is most convenient for the user may be more difficult. The user might want to send the hardcopy to someone else, who could be anywhere in the world. Does the system assume the user knows which printer is most convenient for the other person or does it email/text the other person and have them respond with their preferred printer destination?
My background: In the previous century, I wrote code for PCs to use Datakit (that's an ancient technology
to be able to send printer output (ASCII and binary) anywhere on the AT&T corporate network. From a desk in Atlanta, I could produce hardcopy on a printer in San Diego or _______ (your city here). I think that's probably what "printing while flying" should offer.John
available since early 2008 and are highly reliable. The color
model has the lowest cost of operation of any
workgroup/desktop color laser printer available in North
America.
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