Being miserly about sharing a printer!

[gunug]

I've got a situation where a teacher only wants the printers in his room to share a printer that is connected to one of his workstations.  He has people printing to it from other locations.

[RNKIII]

I think the term used by our school board would be "TOUGH BANANAS!"

Unless there is some 'data privacy' information issues... what's the problem??


Bob K.  rnkiii

[Gregg]

Unless they don't have a printer in the room they are sending from, why would the others want to go to a different room to pick up a print?

My wife has a colleage who doesn't want to take his/her soft drink from a refrigerator in another neigborhood (where he/she lives) and so takes the ones my wife has brought to the teacher's lounge. Is this behavior related??

[Parker]

That's just something he's probably going to have to live it,
since they don't put printers in every classroom in most public schools
due to the costs involved in equipment and maintenance.

If he wants the privacy of his own personal printer, he should give the school board a grand so they can buy him his own personal printer for his room.

[Xairbusdriver]

Remove the printer from his room and no one will use it there. He can get his own for less than $100 and then turn Printer Sharing OFF. I suggest that you turn his ability to see/use the network OFF, also.

[Parker]

the printer may not have been hooked up to a computer
it may have been a network printer
being more reliable

but yea... exactly what Jim said about having him go get his own printer
(and own ink)

[gunug]

Every classroom has at least one printer; his printer is a wide format hi-res inkjet that has 7-8 very expensive cartridges.  He uses the printer for his photography classes (the price of the carts coming out of his class budget) and it's also an interruption when people come to collect their output.

The printer is hooked and shared via a USB port; I suspect the key will be for him to turn it off or take it offline.

[RNKIII]

Scratch original post.....

Now that we have 'The rest of the story".. I can see why he might not want everybody printing out their emails, etc...

Think your suggested solution might be best alternative.


Bob K.   rnkiii

[Xairbusdriver]

If every classroom has its own printer, why is anyone printing to his? Why are any of the  printers even shared, for that matter?

BTW, if that is an Epson printer, I'd highly recommend getting a continuous inking system for it. Ink will be about $14.25 for an 8 once bottle instead of 50% off(?) a $14 dollar cart with mere grams of ink. For about the price of three sets of carts ( 6 with the discounts ) you can have enough ink to probably outlast the printer ( if not the teacher )! These things really pay off in a high volume situation. That's probably why most print shops use them!

[MarkM]

QUOTE

I suspect the key will be for him to turn it off or take it offline.

Can't that printer be taken off of the network in Sys Prefs > Sharing > Printers?

[gunug]

XABD - Most of the printers in that high school are B&W Lexmark Lasers and I guess these people want to sponge on the color and resolution.  


MarkM - He still wants to be able to use the thing for the 28 iMAC G5's and eMAC's in
that room.  


Someone elsewhere has suggested the some of the features in CUPS might lend themselves to a script that could allow the printer to be remotely be turned off and on from the teacher's station.  I'm also reminded of the control system we have in our jail classrooms that allows the teacher to see and control everything that everyone does in that room on their Intel iMAC's!  I don't thing this teacher at the high school wants that much control!