OT - Wireless Printer - OT

Ok my egghead friends.... I need some help. Actually my sister needs some help. She is a teacher and they used to have printers in every classroom. The principal decided that was too much to take care of so they networked a printer in the main office that ALL teachers use. They have all been told they may not have printers in their classrooms that can be seen by the network as they would then be liable to take care of them. My sister is tired of running to the office for stuff only to find out there are 10 jobs ahead of hers... Or that the printer is out of ink, jammed, etc.

So here is what I need. I was thinking of a Bluetooth printer. She could buy a BT Dongle and a BT printer. Being BT it shouldn't show up on the network I would think. BUT... She also cannot install software or drivers onto the school computer. So it would all need to be plug and play... Without having to load anything other than a simple driver that Windows already has installed. It needs to be simple as my sister is not that tech savvy.

Anyone know of anything?

The other thought was that I just give her a laptop and she could just hook up a local printer to that... But she needs internet and the school is all hard wired. They actually will not release the wifi password to teachers! Go figure...

 

I would probably go with a laptop and a local printer.
Show her how to use a USB stick and save the internet docs to the stick.
A print to pdf program would be perfect. I know Office includes one. Don't know about browsers though. I use PDF redirect..

Pop the stick in the laptop and print.
Also opens up options to bring the laptop home for homework.

I figure any printer plugged in to the school computer will show up with the identify new printers. You would have to disable printer sharing..

Is the school using a PC or MAC?

 

The school is all Windows 8...

So you think even a BT printer would show as it would be hooked up to her school PC?

 

My guess it would. I think the only way to do it is to have another computer/printer that is off the network. Schools here are the same way. They are trying to save money and work on the IT guy. A guy I work with, his wife is a grade 3 teacher and what she did was picked up a used Dell for $150.00 and a new Samsung monochrome Laser Printer printer for $80.00 .She did pay for this herself but teachers here get paid a lot more than they do down where you are ($65,000+) They also had a bake sale to raise funds.

 

As long as she is on the network, probably, but I am not a networking expert.

 

Long live sneakernet.

 

This is the tricky bit, even a plug-and-play device would have its drivers auto-installed by the OS. If installing drivers is prohibited then a regular BT printer won't help either.

But ... if each class does have a regular pc, why not hook up an old-fashioned wired printer to the usb or parallel port? Still needs drivers, which you aren't allowed to install, but there's a solution for that (read on). Anyway, it won't show up on the network (it's wired & non-installed) and you can then proceed to Cloud Print:

Hahaha, brilliant, eh? Chrome would send your print job into the WAN (over 10+ hops and non-blocked port 80) and then, after correct re-packaging according to whatever the printer's specifications demand, it'd print the actual file on the locally attached printer .

Even if no drivers are needed (Google runs these) it still requires a Chrome install, which is barred too (obviously, since office workers can't be trusted to work with computers ... ). But no problem; install Chrome Portable on a compatible OS, zip the install folder and unzip on the class pc which has the usb/parallel printer attached (use this method for all kinds of portable apps). I've just tested this to verify; the portable version has the Cloud Print option too and worked as expected: "Show advanced settings" > "Google Cloud Print" > "Manage" > "Add printers".



Recognized my printer just fine, but does need a gmail account. After install you can either print directly from the browser or use a " submit job" for regular office files.

 

Strangely enough... They allow Chrome Browser to be installed. The print drivers can install... As long as they are WINDOWS print drivers (And not HP, IBM, etc.)

I'll have to look into the Chrome thing... Thanks!