Saturday, October 2, 2010

Cloud Printing: Print Remotely With Smartphone, Dropbox




Digital Inspiration’s Amit Agarwal has a clever Dropbox-based solution for printing documents from a smartphone or tablet, whether your printer’s down the hall or thousands of miles away. The idea is so simple, you’ll be amazed you haven’t thought to try it yourself.
Dropbox is a popular utility that allows users to sync and share files on different computers. Native Dropbox applications are available for most smartphone platforms, giving you mobile access to all your files, and many mobile applications are now integrating Dropbox for remote syncing and storage. You can also add files to your Dropbox account via e-mail or the web.
In this solution, use any of those means to get the file you want printed into a shared Dropbox folder — call it “PrintQueue” — that you’ve set up for this purpose. Your print-capable computer uses a script to monitor “PrintQueue,” automatically print its documents and then move them to a different folder. (Agarwal calls this second folder “logs”; I’d call it “Completed Jobs”). If you’re a clever hacker, you could even add scripts to send a remote notification that the print job has been completed.
For Windows, Agarwal has a downloadable VBS script that will set this up for you; as he notes, there are different scripting solutions for Mac OS X or Linux too.
Once you’ve got this rigged, the immediate use case is to send a document wirelessly from a smartphone or tablet to a local printer. And it is kind of magical to stand there and watch the whole process unfold, as in the video above.
But think beyond that. Suddenly, your printer is capable of networking with any computer, anywhere — with any phone, anywhere — that you approve and authorize. This is potentially so much better than hooking up a computer to a wireless router or navigating the virtual bureaucracy of an office printer network. It’s way better than a fax machine.
This could be one future of social networking and file sharing: Instead of big, ad-cluttered feeds that push photos, status updates and Farmville notifications or anonymous networks that chop files into bits and reassemble them, imagine friends and acquaintances broadcasting to each other, wheels within wheels, each with different levels and fields of access. Designating someone a “friend” might not be worth very much in this cockeyed world, but automatic remote access to someone’s printer still means something.


Read More http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/10/cloud-printing-print-remotely-with-smartphone-dropbox/#ixzz13rVzgJ3M

42 comments:

  1. seems like a pretty neat concept

    ReplyDelete
  2. Could be useful. Some stuff crosses my mind.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Yea I wouldn't mind one of these!

    ReplyDelete
  4. This would solve some practical problems I'm having.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Could sort out a few of my Problems

    ReplyDelete
  6. Technology runs faster, I don't even have a cellphone u_u

    ReplyDelete
  7. This is tech we need, ease and seemingly a simple concept. It is like you said, its surprising this was not done already.

    ReplyDelete
  8. printers are always a hassle, i dont like the one we have back at the office lol.

    ReplyDelete
  9. i have to network my printer tomorrow. ughhh

    ReplyDelete
  10. I read about cloud computing at my education. Seems like it's getting better

    ReplyDelete
  11. thanks was looking for something like this for a while now

    ReplyDelete
  12. that's awesome... my phone can print with dropbox though :)

    ReplyDelete
  13. Great post!

    looking forward to reading the next one

    ReplyDelete
  14. I am goign to walk around looking for unlocked cloud printers, and print SOOO MUCH PORN.

    ReplyDelete
  15. well thats really helpful actually

    ReplyDelete
  16. cool, i hope to see more stuff like this

    ReplyDelete
  17. That's kinda cool !

    ReplyDelete
  18. very helpful, always have som dificulties whith those technologies

    ReplyDelete
  19. I could think of a few deviant ways of exploiting this. ;)

    ReplyDelete
  20. nice blog dude, keep up the work

    ReplyDelete
  21. its pretty good i might try this out later

    ReplyDelete
  22. that can be abused...haha
    ____________________
    purpma.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete
  23. Always love following techblogs just to see what other geeks like myself think.

    ReplyDelete
  24. Wow that's just great!

    ReplyDelete
  25. I wouldn't mind addind that to my room.

    Yeah, I'm such a nerd.

    ReplyDelete
  26. Good info! I love little gadgets like this.

    ReplyDelete