Controlling Printers

["John B" <home-automation@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi all,

Just thought I'd let you know about an interesting use for xPL...

I have a friend who has an old HP LaserJet printer - the printer needs
to be physically switched on before you can use it (i.e. it's not one of
these fancy new ones with the soft-on facility).

We came up with the idea of putting it on an appliance module so he
could switch it on from where ever he was in the house, by using a
desktop shortcut (using xPL of course).

However, I've now gone one step further:

I have a file system watcher monitoring the print queue, so whenever
anything is sent to print, an xPL message is sent out that switches on
the printer via X10.

Needless to say he is now a very happy person :-)

If anyone thinks there could be a use for a general purpose service that
watches specified directories, and sends out xPL messages when files
arrive in them, then let me know and I'll see about expanding the code
into something that is suitable for release.

Regards,

John


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