Have you ever tried to print something out in the morning, a few minutes before class, and the printer tells you “warming up”? Our team wants to help the Owen IT department to keep students happy when they need to print something out early in the morning and printers are "asleep.” Here are our three ideas to fix the problem:
1. Schedule Signal from the Server to trigger warm up
We will write a code that will send a signal to the printers around school in the morning, making all of them "wake up."
2. Print out Owen Daily News early in the morning
We will schedule an automatic double-sided print job of the ODN, so the printer by the IT office is ready to go, and the paper isn't wasted.
3. Provide a 24 hour printer that doesn't sleep
We'll talk to the IT and find out if they have money in their budget to buy and "emergency" printer that never sleeps.
I like #2. It seems like the lowest-cost, least intrusive way of getting the printers to warm up.
ReplyDeleteI like #1. It should be pretty easy to do and will make life easier for a lot of us. "a good idea"
ReplyDeleteI like idea #1 the best. If you can write a code which can actually trigger just 1 or 2 printers (to save energy) to start 7 am in the morning, that would be just great. Therefore, some morning persons (minority) can throw their stress away not worrying about waiting for the printer setup time. Idea #2 is also good, but it is a waste of paper, but with the same amount of coding that you will have for #1; so I’d scrap this idea. Idea #3 is a waste of energy; if Owen has the budget, that’d be great, otherwise this is just inefficient in term of energy and money.
ReplyDeleteIdea 1 seems to be very hard to implement as it requires writing code, and the "warming up" feature servers a purpose and probably cant be bypassed. I like idea 3 because if you had one printer that everyone knew was the 24 hour printer, then it would easily solve your problem, the only problem that may arise is the lack of paper due to increased activity.
ReplyDeleteIf you can write code for waking up a printer or two in the morning (and get the OK from our IT dept), this would be an ideal solution to the problem. It doesn't waste paper, it doesn't waste energy, and it solves the problem. Are our IT guys ok with you inserting the necessary code?
ReplyDeleteIdea two is good, too, but seems like it would be similar to idea one as far as implementation. If you can figure this out, it is a very viable idea.
A 24 hour printer is also a good option. I am not sure how much power a printer would use if it were on constantly - it seems like it would be comparable to leaving my desktop on at home. If the administration does not feel it is too large of a cost, this would be an easy fix.
I have had this problem a time or two, but not in the morning. My wait has always occurred on one of the 1st floor printers before an afternoon class. This may be something to think about when you're figuring out how to solve this problem.
ReplyDeleteOf the solutions you posted, I like #1 the best. If it is possible to have someone write code that wakes up one or more printers in the morning, it could solve the problem. I also like the idea that it seemingly uses the fewest resources (i.e. money, paper, electricity).
Here are a couple of questions for you to think about. Which printer(s) get the most use in the morning? Are all printers triggered to sleep after the same amount of idle time? How will students know about this change?
Like Chapin, I was curious about what printers get backed up when. Option #2 seems most viable, but #1 seems more of a big picture,long term solution - not to mention it's most energy-efficient. This seems a perfect problem to solve - it affects all of us at some point at Owen!
ReplyDeleteWell, I was hoping for a 'Print for Haiti' rally, but these are some good ideas! I think the first one is most viable, and is probably easier than you think. The second idea depends on someone being on campus at 7am to print the ODN. I'm sure there are, but what about that one or two times when that person forgets. To do it automatically requires step 1 anyway. Idea 3 also sounds good, but is dependent on IT having the budget. Plus it defeats the purpose of energy-efficient printing. Idea 1 will work best. It may even be possible that the printers have an existing setting that wakes them up at a certain time... might want to check that out. Otherwise, writing a script to warm up the printers at 7am shouldn't be too difficult.
ReplyDelete#1 would be cool, but they'd all fall back asleep
ReplyDelete#2 has a similar issue with #1
#3 seems the most practical
Without coding expertise, it will be challenging to write a script to trigger the printers to warm-up in the morning. However, a script maybe available out on the web without having an IT team develop one. So #1 could work but with technical constraints.
ReplyDelete#2 may work but incentives must be in place to push someone to print everymorning.
#3 is too costly for the scope of this project.
I like the second idea. It conserves paper and allows the printer to be warmed up in a simple easily implemented way.
ReplyDelete