OT: Open source software for Xerox Workcentre
Bjørn Ingmar Berg
bjorn.ingmar.berg at gmail.com
Thu Sep 8 14:55:43 UTC 2005
Tommy,
Thanks for your reply; I will indeed check out the documentation and
explore the link!
At the same time I realise I haven't described my goal sufficiently.
So here's an addendum...
The workstations all run the Redmond alternative OS, and the users do
a lot of scanning as well as printing. My task isn't connected to the
actual use of the machines at all. Not directly. The thing is the
Xerox machines track usage internally. So from the users' point of
view everything works perfectly and nothing needs to be changed. What
I need to do is to get the usage statistics out of the Xerox machines
and combine it at some central point.
Without the dedicated software from Xerox the way to do this is to put
on sneakers and lug a laptop with an USB cable from machine to
machine. The Xerox machines deliver nice CSV-files that easilly can
be imported in a spreadsheet or database.
With the dedicated software from Xerox all the data can be polled
automatically from a central point and put together as one single
report by the software itself. The Xerox machines actually function
as small www-servers on the LAN. Some functions can be done directly
in the web-interface, but you cannot get the CSV-files that way...
This is probably done quite deliberately by Xerox in order to make
more money. They want the customers to see the machine as one
product, and the software needed to utilise the machine as another
discrete product.
My humble hope is that someone somewhere has disagreed enough with
Xerox to put together an alternative utility. I don't really have
high hopes, as this is very specialized software. But you never know.
And while I keep on searching and browsing the web, I thought I might
as well ask on the list too.
Regards,
Bjørn Ingmar
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