OT: Printer Suggestions

[gaf-mNDKBlG2WHs at public.gmane.org (Jerry Feldman)]

In a large office with many different rooms and floors, email alerts are
necessary especially in the case where printers may be serviced by
someone in a computer room, like we had at HP. In a small office like
mine here, my desk is in the same room with the printer, so the alert
mechanism is if I see the red light or someone complains of kicks the
printer. I tried to send him back to Turkey, but he decided to become a
US citizen and work for a bank instead :-).

Based on the facility size in a relatively small office environment, a
high-end networkable printer is probably not feasible, but a relatively
low-end color laser would be very effective leaving the existing inkjets
on the desks until they break down or the employees decide they want the
space or don't want to wait for the ink jet to print. It is not only a
matter of cost, but also people's habits. Imposing a new idea will often
fail if the people don't buy into it. Certainly, an ink jet printer on
everyone's desk can be a real pain and expense. But, much depends on who
buys the ink. There are many reasons in favor of printers per person
especially if there is a lot of confidential information. When you print
to a common printer, the informaiton on the paper is not safeguarded.
Then there are a lot of "issues" that can come up when people just don't
want to change.

On 02/26/2010 12:57 PM, Bill Horne wrote:
> On 2/26/2010 10:56 AM, Jack-rp9/bkPP+cDYtjvyW6yDsg at public.gmane.org wrote:
> > Sometimes toner levels can be checked remotely or the printers can em=
ail
> > alerts when something is wrong.  Set up all the bells
> > and whistles so it reduces printer management load.
>
> It's a good idea to have the printers email their alerts to an
> "attendant" address which then forwards to whomever has the duty:
> managers like the flexibility of being able to rotate the chores or
> juggle assignments during vacations. I like to use google addresses,
> and I leave a detailed instruction sheet that tells the manager how to
> change the forwarding: that way, you won't have to keep track of each
> printer's change procedure, and (as often happens) if the manager in
> question wants you to do it, it's a matter of a couple of minutes,
> instead of a big affair that requires a visit to the customer premise.
>
> > I think you will still have a few that insist on inkjets on their
> > desk.  You might find a way where IT or 'shared services' pays for th=
e
> 'shared printers' and
> > user departments get stuck with a bill for all the 'desk' printers.
> Managers
> > like to keep their dept budgets down while using 'others' resources.
> But make
> > sure that upper management sees that this is reducing overall cost to=

> > the organization, not just empire building.
>
> There are lots of ways to induce people to change, but that's not a
> task that a technical person needs to get involved with. If the
> organization's management decides to phase out the inkjets, then
> they'll be responsible for "selling" the new environment: the most
> effective tactic I've seen is to simply stop buying supplies for
> them.  Some users will purchase their own, but that peters out after a
> month or two.
>
> > But changes like this all depend on your corporate culture.
>
> You're right: a non-profit would be a different challenge than other
> firms. When you have an environment with lots of "island" resources,
> the least painful way to retire them is to convince managers to
> install uniform new computers, and then order machines which don't
> support the printers in question. I've dealt with firms where the
> honchos told me "Just do it", and the employees came in the next day
> to find their inkjet printers gone, and I've worked with some that
> wouldn't consider /any/ change until a parent organization approved
> it. It all depends on the organization; I still recommend giving
> management a clear choice, justified by cost estimates, and then the
> orders come from above, not from "the evil techie".
>
> FWIW. YMMV. See you tomorrow!
>
> Bill

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Jerry Feldman <gaf-mNDKBlG2WHs at public.gmane.org>
Boston Linux and Unix
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