Acquisition of new printers

i. Quota-controlled free printing service

Although the existing printers for supporting the quota-controlled free printing service have only been used for about 3 years, they break down quite frequently due to abnormal wear-and-tear resulting from year after year increasing heavy usages far exceeding their recommended loads. All of the existing 10 printers in the Computing Services Centre (CSC) and Library will be phased out and replaced by industrial grade Konica Minolta Bizhub Pro 950 printers. These new printers will be installed in late-March and hopefully put into use in early-April to meet another peak printing demand towards the end of Semester B.

The following table summarizes the quota-controlled printing service after installation of these new printers.

ii. Charged printing service

The two printers for supporting the black & white and colour charged printing service in the CSC student terminal areas have been replaced by two new Konica Minolta colour printers with improved performance. These new printers are still installed at the same location inside the CSC and the charging rates remain the same. Moreover, the printing release will be changed to a more reliable method which can greatly reduce the pitfalls of the existing one.

Planning for iPad/iPhone printing support

In view of the fact that iPads and iPhones have become popular tools for supporting e-learning as well as Internet activities, the CSC is planning for printing support of these mobile devices. We have already set up an infrastructure to test printing from an iPad and iPhone. Due to limited built-in printing capabilities of these mobile devices, our printing management system can only support a few basic printing features at the moment. We may expect such printing features will be enriched in future releases of these mobile devices.

iPad/iPhone printing service will be launched in late summer as pilot. Depending on the evaluation results, the service will be made permanent in Semester A, 2012-13. FAQs will be posted on related website to assist users.

For further information of the printing services, please visit

http://www.ncm2.xyz/csc/deptweb/facilities/terminal-area/printing.htm