I have mentioned in this blog about the need for printer manufacturers to move away from supplying CDs or USB memory keys full of printer drivers with their printers. What I was wanting to see was the driver software being held in separate memory on the printer that is accessible as a USB Mass-Storage Device for direct-attached printers or through common network protocols for network printers.

At last, Hewlett-Packard has answered this need as far as Windows users are concerned with the LaserJet Pro 1560 and 1600 Series monochrome laser printers, one of which will be reviewed in this blog. The review printer which is the LaserJet Pro 1560 – a low-end direct-attached printer, was set up without me needing to find a CD in the box.

The setup experience went like this:

1. Once the printer was connected to my computer’s USB socket and to the power, Windows 7 discovered the printer and mounted an extra drive letter for that printer.

2. I then visited the extra drive and ran the setup file, whereupon the printer’s driver set was installed and I was offered the ability to print the Windows Test Page.

The networked versions allowed you to log in to the printer’s IP address from your browser, once you have printed the network information page, in order to download the driver software.

No mess, no fuss!

No need to worry about the printer setup CD anymore!

Points of improvement

Some improvements that I would like to see include a driver set for the Apple MacOS X Macintosh computers available on the “CD-free install” memory and that the printer’s “CD-free install” memory mounts as another disk on the Macintosh Desktop.

Another improvement would be to let Windows discover the driver set without any user intervention once the printer is connected to the USB port. This could then lead to true plug-and-play printing for this class of printer.

Furthermore, I would like to see this function made available in more of the consumer multifunction printers because the people who use these printers are more likely to end up with grief because they of driver-install issues.

The function can be augmented by allowing for driver update procedures to include in-field refreshing of the driver set available on the printer. This can lead to support for newer operating platforms or improvements that are provided in the current operating platforms.

News articles

Du SSD pour les “vieilles” bécanes | Le Journal du Geek (France – French language)

My comments

You may be keeping an older IDE-based computer going or have a computer which has one IDE bus but plenty of SATA connectors on the motherboard. Hey, you may think of adding a solid-state drive to this computer in order to benefit from high operating speeds and low energy consumption but the fact that the only vacant secondary-storage interface is IDE-based throws your plans haywire.

What Buffalo has now done is to provide an SSD which connects to the IDE bus on these computers. The main limitation with this is that they only come in a 2.5” chassis, which means that you may have to use a 2.5” mounting kit and adaptor plugs if the computer you plan to upgrade is your desktop rig. They have a 64Mb cache and come in capacities of 32Gb, 64Gb and 128Gb with a price list of USD$250, USD$360 and USD$630 respectively. This may be a steep premium to pay if you want that quicker boot time for your older computer.

In my opinion, I would place the 64Gb drive as a drop-in replacement for the system drive (operating system, program files) in a multi-drive computer while keeping the “data” drives as regular rotary drives. Here, this could lead to quick boots and application starts without much power being used. The 128Gb drive may be useful as a drop-in replacement for the hard drives in older laptops that have a fair bit of life in them so as to keep them running longer on their batteries.

The current situation

Typically, a printer or “all-in-one” comes with a CD that has a monolithic driver and application set for the device. The files on this disc are also available at the manufacturer’s Website in their latest form and / or ported to different operating systems.

The current problem with this method of printer installation is that it is assumed that every computer has a working optical drive built in to it. The situation here is different in reality because a computer like a netbook or nettop may not have an integrated optical drive and there is a common situation where optical drives are likely to fail. This is more so with the slimline “carriage-load” optical drives that are part and parcel of most laptops that are in the field and are becoming part of the equation with small-footprint desktop computers.

The market might prefer the use of a USB memory key that has all this software, especially due to netbooks and “thin-and-light” notebooks that don’t have optical drives becoming commonly available. But this memory key, like the CD, may end up being lost through the life of the printer simply due to common misplacement. There is even the factor that the files may be wiped by accident as a person intends to “stuff” a memory key with more data to take with them.

What can be done

Use of fixed onboard storage

I would prefer the printer, especially any device that offers network or fax functionality, to use fixed onboard storage. A lot of the “all-in-ones” support local removeable storage in order to permit “there-and-then” printing of digital images held on a camera’s memory card or to support “scan-to-memory” functionality, but the fixed storage could take things further.  The USB host port on a lot of these printers may be able to be used beyond connecting PictBridge-enabled cameras. In most cases, this port may be available for one to plug in a USB memory key to print documents or images held on that memory key.

The fixed onboard storage can extend printer functionality and increase operation efficiency in may different ways.  For example, it could come in handy for queuing documents that are to be printed thus taking the load off the host computers; or providing for enhanced fax functionality like “after-hours” fax transmission (to take advantage of off-peak call costs) or “hold-without-print” fax reception for whenever the machine is out of paper / ink or as a security measure. With the scanner, this could come in handy for “scan-to-email” or “pick-up-from-machine” scanning where you scan the hard copy to on-machine storage and use your computer to visit the on-machine storage when collecting the scanned images . In the case of “there-and-then” photo printing, the fixed storage can come in handy with holding the images that are to be printed so that the user can remove their camera card or PictBridge-connected camera and continue taking more pictures.

Relevance to printer setup

As far as the printer-setup routine goes, a part of this storage could be used for holding driver files for most platforms.

Local USB connection

If the printer is connected directly to the computer via a USB cable, the fixed storage could be presented as a Mass-Storage Device. Here, the storage would appear as another volume of the file system and the operating system would point to that volume whenever it has to load the drivers as part of its “plug-and-play” peripheral installation whenever a printer is connected to a computer running Windows or MacOS X. Linux users could find the necessary binaries and source files when they mount the internal storage to the “*NIX” file-system tree.

This practice is totally similar to how the drivers and supplementary software are stored on one of those USB wireless-broadband modems. Then, if the computer’s operating system doesn’t have native support for wireless broadband, the user loads this software directly from the broadband modem.

Network connection

If the printer is connected to an IP-based network like a home or office network, the fixed storage, especially the driver-files area, would be presented as a CIFS, FTP or HTTP network volume readable to all users and device-initialisation methods like “Point and Print”, UPnP, DPWS and Apple Bonjour to locate the drivers on this storage and load them in to the computers.

Keeping the drivers up to date

The user could keep the drivers up to date by running a “driver-update” program that exists on the printer’s fixed storage if the printer is connected directly to the computer. This program could poll the manufacturer’s Website for newer drivers for particular operating systems and upload the newer drivers to the printer.

On the other hand, the user could set a network-connected printer to poll the manufacturer’s Website at regular intervals for driver updates for the nominated platforms.

Benefit for installers and users

This setup method can reduce the amount of work required to commission a new printer or enable printer access to a computer that has just come on to their site. There is less need to remember where driver CDs or USB memory keys are or the Web download details for the drivers, whether for existing operating systems or for newer platforms.

It can also cut down on the number of helpdesk calls or service visits that are needed whenever someone is setting up a printer for the first time, because they have trouble with balky optical drives (common with a lot of laptops), scratched discs or missing printer-software media.

A wireless hotspot or other facility that provides public Internet access can also benefit from offering a document-printout service to their customers without having to help the customers with adding printer drivers to their computer or make a CD or USB memory key full of driver files available to their customers.

Cost and design impact for manufacturers

The fixed storage could simply be based on a hard disk or flash memory with a very low storage capacity, say up to 160Gb and which is of a small form factor like a microdrive. This can avoid the manufacturer having to vary the printer’s industrial design to suit integrating local storage and the cost to provide the storage becomes very minimal.

This feature offers another point for manufacturers to differentiate the products in their range. An economy model could just have a small amount of memory with just enough room for the drivers and perhaps queuing memory for an average document whereas midrange and high-end units could have increased memory space for all of the functionality that comes with these models.

As I mentioned before, the same feature can provide added value to the printer or “all-in-one” device such as the device taking the load off the host computers or offering a raft of extra functionality. Manufacturers can also save money on preparing and packing optical discs or USB memory keys with their printers and avoid needing to handle support issues concerning these items.

Summary

Once we work towards a method of setting up printers without any need for extra media to come with the printers, we can then see a true “plug-and-play” printing experience for all printer users.