As we move more and more toward the cloud, one thing that is going to become an issue is the ability to print. You can virtually do just about everything else in the cloud. HP has a halfway decent solution to this by adding a feature to newer printers that allow you to print by sending an email to your printer. However, there is limited support for the types of documents you can do this with.
Leave it to Google to come up with a solution to this problem. Using the Google Chrome browser, you can add printers (old and new, with some caveats) to the cloud and print to them from pretty much anywhere. Lifehacker actually wrote a pretty decent article laying out what is required to use Google Cloud Print. The showcase features in my opinion are the ability to use just about any printer and the ability to print from your smart phone.
You can read the article from Lifehacker here. I’ve tried using this and have had success from my PC, but have yet to get it working from my phone. I’ve still got some tweaking to do, but a service like this has serious potential.
You know, Tim, I’m glad you posted this. I’ve kinda known about it, but never thought much into it. Just this weekend, I was researching some information on Wingate (can’t do it at work because of the filter) on my laptop, and I found some stuff I wanted to print. Well, the LaserJet is attached to the old computer in the dining room through a parallel port (too old for a network port and the JetDirect unit died). I’ve tried sharing that printer before through that computer, but Windows XP can’t recognize my laptop (running Windows 7) to push the driver.
So, I’ll have to try this out. This might be the exact solution I need. And if I get it working, I’ll be a very happy person.
With everything moving to the cloud, printing should really be no exception here. I like the whole concept of Google Cloud Print, but I would really like to see something that is configurable no matter what browser you use. HP is kind of going this direction, but it only works with newer printers. There are some paid services that you can use that do this, but they have restrictions on the number of pages. I think we’ll be seeing a lot more of these types of services spring up over the next couple of years, since the need for killing trees isnt going away anytime soon.