[1104] in resnet
Re: Fast vs. Slow or Small vs. Large Print Job Options
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Anthony J. Albert)
Thu Apr 4 07:56:29 2002
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Date: Thu, 4 Apr 2002 07:53:17 -0500
Reply-To: Resnet Forum <RESNET-L@listserv.nd.edu>
From: "Anthony J. Albert" <albert@POLARIS.UMPI.MAINE.EDU>
To: RESNET-L@listserv.nd.edu
In-Reply-To: <FB61004ECA@polaris.umpi.maine.edu>
Dear Melody,
Well, you'll need to include a bit more information in your questions
when you write them. For example, there is no information on what OSes
are being used, both for desktop and servers, and whether the printers
are working from print queues, or are directly servicing the desktops.
Doing a little WWW research, from your statement that you are using
[Pharos] UnipriNT, it appears that you are using Win NT/2000 servers
with Windows-compatible workstations. This would appear to imply that
your lab computers are printing to queues on the servers, and that the
printers are serving the server queues.
One suggestion is to simply use the printers' administrative software
(I believe this is still named "JetAdmin" for HP?) to put two printers
in a lab, and tell both printers to attach to the same server queue. I
don't know if it is possible Windows servers, but it certainly is
possible with Netware. The net effect is that each printer grabs the
next job coming into the queue, so a printer will service a long job,
and the other printer will continue to service jobs coming in after the
long job. This also provides redundancy, which is of especial benefit
in larger labs. One printer can die completely, and you'll still have
a printer chugging away.
Another possibilty would be to have the workstations in a lab print to
a server queue ["Queue_A"] and have some software on the server which
would check the files in the queue, then move them, based on your
criteria, to the actual output queue ["Queue_B" or "Queue_C"]. The
printers would be set to attach to either Queue_B or Queue_C, depending
on which types of jobs you want them to service. This process might
even be scriptable in a relatively simple language, like Perl. (I'm not
sufficiently familiar with WinNT/2000 print queues to be able to
confirm that Perl could be used.)
You may also be able to get Uniprint to reject jobs of over a certain
byte size, which are printed to certain queues. This not only forces
the students to select a different queue to print to, it helps prevent
accidental printings of 300-page jobs which the student didn't really
want, anyway. This, however, presumes that you can instruct your
students in picking the right queue to print to.
Hope this helps,
Anthony J. Albert
On 3 Apr 2002 at 23:01, Automatic digest processor wrote:
>------------------------------
>
>Date: Wed, 3 Apr 2002 16:35:30 -0500
>From: "Childs, Melody" <mchilds@INDIANA.EDU>
>Subject: Fast vs. Slow or Small vs. Large Print Job Options
>
>This message is in MIME format. Since your mail reader does not understand
>this format, some or all of this message may not be legible.
>
>------_=_NextPart_001_01C1DB57.7A4E6400
>Content-Type: text/html
BTW, did you know that you are sending out HTML-formatted mail? In this
message, it multiplied the size of the message by a factor of 7!
>Does anyone have a solution for separating relatively slow vs. fast print
>jobs, or alternatively, small vs. large print jobs in their residential
>technology labs?
>
>Here at Indiana U., we have labs that range in size from a few to several
>dozen computers. Each lab is equipped with usually a single HP LaserJet
>Printer (typically an 8000 series). Although we manage total print volume
>through student print quotas, a typical sore point with students is that
>someone sends a 300-page job to the printer, or sends a Powerpoint document with
>HUGE graphics, which forces everyone else's jobs to queue up for 20 minutes
>while the big job finishes. We have considered putting 2 printers in the larger
>labs to offload the work of a single printer, but we have little expectation
>that students will cooperate to the point of sending small jobs to one printer
>and large jobs to another. So we are looking for some technology to do that
>automatically. In other words, we're looking for some software that will preview
>the size of a print job and send it to the appropriate print queue based on size
>(or speed???). One more piece of data - we currently use Uniprint to do the
>accounting, so it would have to work with Uniprint. Does anyone have a solution
>like this?
>
>Thanks in advance,
>Melody Childs
>Manager, Residential I.T. Services
>Indiana University
>Bloomington, IN
>mchilds@indiana.edu
===========================================================
Anthony J. Albert albert@umpi.maine.edu
Systems and Software Support Specialist Postmaster
Computer Services - University of Maine, Presque Isle
"Ta'Lon, is that you?"
"It's me most days, except for those days when I don't feel
quite like myself and I suppose that I am someone else, but
for now, yes, it is me."
-G'Kar and Ta'Lon, Babylon 5 episode: _The_Ragged_Edge_
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