Pocket printer?.....scanner?

http://planon.com/

Didja ever need to print out that email or webpage on your pocket device
so you could read it or have a hard copy to show a bunch of people?

Printstik.....street price about $240....is a THERMAL printer with its
own internal paper cart (buy.com wants $18 for 3 rolls for it) that's
Bluetooth connected...no wires...rechargeable...no cords...NO INK OOZING
out into your briefcase as the plane takes off and the pressure
drops....

Google it and YouTube. This think is, of course, about 12" long but
it's still tiny by portable printer standards.

I've already emailed them to connect their driver coders to Maemo's
driver coders. I want one pretty bad.....

Uses? Many!......

You're out looking for 213 Maemo Drive and want a bigger map of the maze
of streets in this stupid neighborhood.....print the map

Someone needs a printout of something and doesn't have a BT printer to
connect to to give it to them. Print it yourself.

The boss emailed you a list of instructions and stuff to pickup all over
town while you are out. It's on the tablet/iphone/blackberry but it's a
PITA to keep popping it up all the time....Print it and carry the paper
into the shops.

You need a printout of the schematic they sent you to fix their PoS
that's broken. Squinting at a little piece of this huge schematic just
isn't enough on the 4" screen. PRINT IT....or the portion of it you
need, 11" wide by as long as there is thermal paper in the
cartridge....yards long.

"How much will this cost me?", the CEO you're trying to sell to asks.
Print a preliminary document for him before his very eyes....most
impressive.

I can see LOTS of uses for such a tiny thermal printer.

Planon also has a really cool BT-connected SCANNER that looks like a
pen!

Scan the document someone handed you into your Blackberry and email it
to your desktop at the office. Scan your daily expenses into jpgs and
email them to the accounting department so your check will be waiting
for you....not 3 weeks after you get back.

Cool stuff....Maybe an iPhone printer if you kidnap Jobs and demand a
driver before releasing him.

At 27 Sep 2008 16:58:22 +0000 Larry wrote:
> http://planon.com/
>
> Didja ever need to print out that email or webpage on your pocket device
> so you could read it or have a hard copy to show a bunch of people?
>
> Printstik.....street price about $240....is a THERMAL printer with its
> own internal paper cart (buy.com wants $18 for 3 rolls for it) that's
> Bluetooth connected...no wires...rechargeable...no cords...NO INK OOZING
> out into your briefcase as the plane takes off and the pressure
> drops....
>
> Google it and YouTube. This think is, of course, about 12" long but
> it's still tiny by portable printer standards.
>
> I've already emailed them to connect their driver coders to Maemo's
> driver coders. I want one pretty bad.....

Get the Maemo guys to dash out a quick dirty screen dump driver for this:

http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?inv...A6-BLU&cat=PRN

$16 for a IR-connected thermal printer that runs for hours on 4AA Batts and
is no larger than a paperback book.

I've got three of them I've used them for years with Windows laptops and
WinMo PDAs/phones. I'm still pissed off my current WinMo phone omitted IR
and has no way to connect to it !

I keep one in my travel bag for use with my tiny Asus EEE PC, and used to
keep one in the card to print out the occasional on-line coupon from my PDA
phone for restaurants, etc.

>
> Uses? Many!......
>
> Cool stuff....Maybe an iPhone printer if you kidnap Jobs and demand a
> driver before releasing him.


The real problem with most portable devices is that their OSes have no
native print function- it's kind of like the old DOS days where each
program had to supply it's own printer support. On WinMo, for example, the
printer manufacturer generally creates a print program that will print text
files, screen caps, and maybe a few file formats (the Sipix printer I
referenced above had a program to print plain text, Pocket Word and Excel
files, and emails. You selected the file to print from a list in the
printer's own program, not the native program- i.e. Pocket Excel didn't
"grow" a print function in it's menu- you have to run the printer program
and select the Excel file you wish to print.)

For seamless print support of any document, the device would need a system-
wide print function all programs could direct output to, that the OS would
then handoff to the printer driver (like a modern desktop OS), and, AFAIK,
no mobile phone OS (RIM, iPhone, Symbian, WinMo, Palm) provides such print
support. With my Sipixes hooked to WinMo, I usually just used the "print
screen" function, just making sure the text or image I wanted to print was
on screen first. (The Screen print program runs in t
e background and is triggered by whatever hardware button you assign to it,
so you're free to roam around in any app you want and get the necessary
info on screen, hit the assigned button, and get a "Print this screen?
Yes/Cancel" pop-up dialog.)

Seeing the poor clerk at a Barnes and Noble valiantly trying to scan the
blurry 1/4-sized thermal-printed barcode on the "20% off any item "email
coupon I printed in the car moments before just adds to the geeky fun!

One way to print from and scan to the iPhone would be to use one of
those web-based email->fax / fax->email services ... the problem these
days can often be finding somewhere with a fax machine to use.

Todd Allcock <elecconnec@AnoOspamL.com> wrote in news:gbm9g1$bo7$1
@aioe.org:

> http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?inv...A6-BLU&cat=PRN

Availability: Out of Stock

Sold out. Maybe they'll find some more. I clicked the alert button.

I have a USB-to-DB9 Serial Port cable for the tablet and we have a little
linux driver to go with it. I can feed it serial data but no Irda, either.
Serial is fine...(c;

Thanks for the pointer. nice unit miles cheaper. Maybe Ebay or Craigs
list.

"Larry" <noone@home.com> wrote in message
news:Xns9B26D25EC910Cnoonehomecom@208.49.80.253...
> Todd Allcock <elecconnec@AnoOspamL.com> wrote in news:gbm9g1$bo7$1
> @aioe.org:
>
>> http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?inv...A6-BLU&cat=PRN
>
> Availability: Out of Stock
>
> Sold out. Maybe they'll find some more. I clicked the alert button.


Sorry- I googled it quickly and didn't pay attention to the stock status.
Sign up for alerts on this one too:
http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?inv...A6-BLK&cat=PRN

It's the same printer but in black instead of see-thru blue.

> I have a USB-to-DB9 Serial Port cable for the tablet and we have a little
> linux driver to go with it. I can feed it serial data but no Irda,
> either.
> Serial is fine...(c;
>
> Thanks for the pointer. nice unit miles cheaper. Maybe Ebay or Craigs
> list.

Before you get too excited, you'll need a driver before it'll work on the
tablet. It's a graphics-only (bitmap) printer- it doesn't print ASCII text
directly- the driver converts text to a graphicf bitmap before the printer
can print it (the same way a fax machine "prints" text.

Still a nice cheap comanion for your laptop, however, if you can still find
one. The roll and sheet paper are hard to find and expensive, but my
cheapskate ways fixed that. I took a thermal fax paper roll and cut the
whole roll with a mitre saw and "rolled my own"! ;-) One roll of fax paper
will give me a lifetime supply the little I use it!



>

"Todd Allcock" <elecconnec@AnoOspamL.com> wrote in
news:gbmnqe$a2r$1@aioe.org:

> Still a nice cheap comanion for your laptop, however, if you can still
> find one. The roll and sheet paper are hard to find and expensive,
> but my cheapskate ways fixed that. I took a thermal fax paper roll
> and cut the whole roll with a mitre saw and "rolled my own"! ;-) One
> roll of fax paper will give me a lifetime supply the little I use it!
>
>
>

I have cases of paper that may already fit it. Someone I did some
electronics work for handed me a perfectly good working Alden WEFAX HF
receiver with built-in thermal printer that uses narrower paper. I got all
the supplies he had left over when I converted his WEFAX to his laptop
hooked to the audio of his marine HF-SSB radio.