PocketWhere for Pocket PC

PocketWhere for Pocket PC

From time to time, most of us need to print a document on the road. You can carry a portable printer, but that adds several pounds to your travel gear. PrinterOn Wireless combines network printing with mobile printing services to enable remote printing from a computer or an Internet-enabled Personal Digital Assistant with e-mail capabilities, such as the Treo 600. You can view, fax and print e-mail, attachments and Web pages from any wireless handheld device with PrinterOn. You can print in your home, office or from public printers at hotels and Wi-Fi hotspots listed in the PrinterOn Directory, an online, searchable resource that allows people to locate Internet printers.

PrinterOn’s wireless software, PocketWhere, provides a wireless user interface for searching the Global Printer Directory. The subscription service is called PrinterOn Wireless. For the more common devices, PrinterOn has specific PocketWhere software solutions that add print features to the wireless devices, forwarding print requests and information to be printed to the PrinterOn servers for processing. For wireless devices PocketWhere software doesn’t support, you can issue a printing request by forwarding the e-mail or attachment to the PocketWhere server.

The PrinterOn Wireless service supports more than 100 file types for viewing, printing and faxing attachments. It’s supported by PrintAnywhere, a server-based tool that lets you build Internet printing and fax capabilities into your Web services. PrinterOn Wireless also can handle “nested” e-mail messages and attachments within compressed files.

PrinterOn Wireless works with standard e-mail systems by forwarding messages. You can print the e-mail itself as well as any attachments. You must first identify a printer and set it up to receive and process print commands. You also can use public access printers available through the PrinterOn network. To print e-mails, attachments and Web pages, you either issue a print command through the PocketWhere software or you forward what you wish to print, along with the name of the printer. PrinterOn Wireless sends the document to the selected printer. If you are traveling, you can ask the hotel or company you are traveling to if they have an Internet printer listed in PrinterOn’s Global Printer Directory. PrinterOn’s servers then send an e-mail report back, advising you of any problems or confirming the processing of your command and the printing of your material.

I tested the PrinterOn services and software in several configurations, including sending via e-mail on a BlackBerry device and with the Pocket PC version of PocketWhere. It worked fine in all versions. However, I did initially encounter some problems with printing e-mail attachments from the BlackBerry using the PocketWhere software. Switching to the forwarded e-mail commands solved the problem; everything printed fine after that.

Setting up your own networked printer for use with the PrinterOn system is simple. Your printer must have Internet access and a static Internet protocol address. You also must have a local computer on the Windows operating system networked to the computer to receive and transmit the printing commands. It will then establish a log of completed print commands. To set up your printer, you download the required software from the PrinterOn Web site, install it and configure your printer. If you have a firewall (as you should), be sure to enable the print commands to move through the firewall. The configuration issues respecting the printer can be somewhat problematic with some printers. The difficulties I had configuring my office printer for remote access through PrinterOn were resolved with assistance from PrinterOn’s Technical Support personnel.

For extra features such as encryption or the ability to print through a firewall, you must register each of your printers. All communications that incorporate user or destination information are encrypted using Secure Sockets Layer to ensure user privacy. To subscribe to the PrinterOn system, the fee is $36 per year per user. For firms with more than 100 users, the cost is only $30 per year. PrinterOn offers enterprise pricing packages as well.

I have e-mailed documents to my office and my assistant has downloaded them, printed them and handled their distribution. For me, the $36 annual cost for subscription is offset by the convenience of the service, so the only thing for my assistant to do is collect and distribute my documents.

PrinterOn Corporation
(519) 748-2462

www.printeron.net

Price: Subscriptions are $6 a month, with additional fax delivery charges of 15 cents a page for North America.

Windows 95/98/ME/NT 4.0 Service Pack 4/2000/XP; Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0 or higher, Netscape 4.0 or higher.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Allen, a general practice attorney with an emphasis in real estate, business transactions and litigation based in Oakland, Calif.

Oct/Nov '04 Issue

PROS
Reasonably priced. Cross platform.

CONS
Different platforms use different interfaces, and the software doesn’t work equally well on all platforms.

VERDICT
Once you set everything up, the service works easily. At $36 per year, if I save 15 minutes in locating and arranging for a printer, it has more than paid for itself.