🚀 go-pugleaf

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
We use PCOUNTER to do this on our network. We have 4 network attached
HP4SiMX printers, one network attached Tektronix Phaser 540, and one
Tektronix Phaser IIIPXi connected using an HP Jet Direct Box.

Users print to whatever queues they have the rights to use. Then the
PCOUNTER picks up the print jobs, counts the pages and drops the print job
into another queue. This second queue is the queue that the HP JetDirect is
configured to look at and use as it's print queue. We keep the users from
going around the PCOUNTER and printing to the second queue by making it so
the PCOUNTER machine's login is the only one that can add jobs to the queue.
Does this make sense? I'll make a little diagram to make it a little more clear.

        User---->Queue #1---->PCOUNTER---->Queue #2---->Printer

        Queue #1 is the public queue that users see.
        Queue #2 is the quickest way to send jobs to the printer.
                 (Quicker than parallel.)

We tried to use the PCOUNTER software's LPR capabilities to send print jobs
to the printer using TCP/IP, but that has two pretty major drawbacks. First,
it was WAY too slow. Second, a knowledgable user could have configured LPR
software to get around our PCOUNTER and print directly to the printer.

The only major drawback I've found to this method is during peak usage, when
all of the printers are printing like mad it tends to put a load on our
network. This scheme sends a print job's data through the network four times
(user to queue #1, queue #1 to pcounter, pcounter to queue #2, queue #2 to
printer). The old way, with direct parallel connected printers only sent the
data through the network twice.

Kirk

At 05:59 PM 2/14/96 EST, you wrote:
>>----------------------------Original message----------------------------
>>We are currently using Pcounter to count pages and Print Servers for
>>novell.  We just recd a HP 5si that has a jet direct card.  We'd
>>like to install it to the network directly (without having to have the
>old pserver boxes around)
>>
>>Does anyone know of a page counting software that would work with
>>this??  We have found that the only way we dont waste as much paper
>>(especailly now that we have netscape on the computers) is by limiting
>>the students pages.  We still need to have how much time they use >the
>>computer so we cannot change novell to only do pages.