— MIIS Library

Students at the Monterey Institute will soon have access to new high-speed environmentally friendly printers, an updated PaperCut print control system, and a new way to print from their personal laptops. These updates to the student printing system have begun showing up in the Library, and should be completed by the start of the Fall 2010 semester.

New Library Printers: The Library printer on the first floor is the first printer to have the new system installed. The printer on the second floor will soon follow. To print from one of the 1st floor Library computers:

1.    Log into the computer with your local network account and print from any application as you always have.

2.    Walk over to the printer, and log into the new Print Release station with the same local network account. You will see any print jobs you have submitted in a list.

3.    Click on the Print link to print the desired print job, then logout. Your document is immediately printed. You can also delete a document or see your balance at the release station.

We will notify the campus as more printers and release stations come online. Once the system is entirely in place, students can print from any campus computer or personal laptop, and find their print jobs waiting for release at any of the four new Canon printers. We hope you’ll share our excitement in this easier, more efficient, high speed printing system.

What Else is New?

Follow Me Printing: Students will be able to submit print jobs from anywhere on campus, and then will be able to choose one of four new Canon 65ppm heavy duty (and environmentally friendly) printers to print their jobs.   Once a print job is submitted, either directly from one of the open access computers in the Library, the Pacific computer lab, or from a personal laptop, students will simply go up to a print release workstation located next to one of the printers, log in and then release their print job(s) for imeadiate printing.  This will eliminate the need to choose a printer ahead of time.

New Printer Locations*: Students will be able to submit print jobs up to eight hours in advance, and may later decide which of these four locations on campus they are closest to -

·        Library 1st Floor

·        Library 2nd Floor

·        Casa Fuente 449 Pacifc Street

·        Morse 100 Lab & Media Services

* Separate printers will no longer be used for laptop printing.  Students using laptops will now have access to all four student printers, without having to first install separate printer drivers as they do now.

No More Wasted Paper: Students may submit multiple print jobs and then print all their submitted jobs at once, thus avoiding several trips to the printer, and lost print outs.   Print jobs that are submitted but not released will simply go away after eight hours, and students will not be charged for any unprinted job.   Print jobs submitted by mistake can simply be deleted by the student at the time of release or can simply be left to expire on their own after eight hours.

Students finding one of the four printers in use may choose to simply go to one of the other printers, and release their print jobs there.   Since their print jobs are not actually printed until they are released students will no longer have to worry that their papers may be lost due to someone printing in front of their jobs.  This will also help with the Institute’s sustainability initiative, since boxes of unclaimed paper will no longer be thrown away.

New Account Interface: Students will now be able to get much more information about their PaperCut account balances and printing history. This will be accomplished by simply browsing to papercut.miis.edu to log on with the MIIS local network account.  Once there they will be able to access their account summary, see their recent print jobs and transaction history, redeem a TopUp card to recharge their account, and to upload files to print directly from their laptop.  They will also be able to requst a refund on a print job if there is a problem with one of the printers.

New Laptop Printing: Students owning personal laptops will no longer have to worry about loading obscure printer drivers onto their laptops to print, or if their printer drivers will still work each time Microsoft or Apple updates their operating system.  The new laptop printing method allows them to print imeadiately, by following these simple steps -

1.   Browse to papercut.miis.edu.

2.   Log into your PaperCut account with your MIIS local network account and password.

3.   Click on the new Web Print link.

4.   Follow the simple instructions that guide you through uploading a standard PDF format file to be rendered by the PaperCut server for printing.

5.   Go to any one of the four printers mentioned above within eight hours and release your print job.

Students owning Mac laptops may simply use the built in PDF printing function under Leopard to create PDF files ready for uploading to PaperCut.  Students owning Windows laptops may install one of several free PDF utilities, such as CUTE PDF, that creates a special printer driver to generate PDF files ready for uploading to PaperCut.

Over the next few months we will be phasing out the old Xerox printers and the old method of using printer drivers to these printers.  As the Xerox printers are removed from the Library and other locations on campus, students will need to begin using the new method of printing described above.  Once the Xerox printers are removed you will no longer be able to use your current printer drivers for student printers, so you will want to replace these with one of the PDF drivers mentioned above.

Green Printing: All of the new Canon printers have been set to default to duplex printing to save as much paper as possible.  All of the Canon printers use up to 25% less electricity than previous student printers, are quieter and are more environmentally friendly due to things like recyclable toner cartridges, and the ability to use recycled paper with less paper jams. With new print release stations helping to cut down on wasted paper, the Institute is doing its part to help protect the environment.  Students will also be able to see the environmental impact of their printing by logging into their PaperCut accounts, where they will see an estimate of the trees, carbon and electricity used to print their jobs.

Balance Notification: In the near future the new PaperCut system will be able to notify each student by email when their account balance falls below $5.  In the Library and in the PAC computer lab, PaperCut popup clients are being installed that will allow students to imeadiately see their account balance once they sign onto a workstation (lower right corner).   The price of each print job is also listed at the print release station so that students can make choices on which jobs to print. Students are also notified at the time they submitt their print jobs as to whether or not they have enough funds to print.

There will be quite a few more features added as these become available, including recharging accounts using credit cards, and the ability to see which printers are online, and which need service.  Further anouncements will be forthcoming as these new features become available.  Instructions are being posted in the Library and other printer locations to help you take advantage of the new student printing system.

John Grunder
Director, Information Technology Services