My printer's got an e-mail!
November 15, 2007 3:44 PM Subscribe
How do I set up a Presto-like service (send e-mail to printer for family member that's not computer savvy) without using a dialup connection?
Presto is a product that allows you to send e-mail to someone who doesn't have a computer. The e-mail prints out after a dial-up connection is made a few times a day. So they can't respond, but they can get notes and pictures from friends & family. (http://www.presto.com).
I have a friend who wants to have this exact setup, except that it would have to work through an internet connection, and not through dial-up. It seems like dial-up is the only option with Presto.
They have a PC in the basement, but no one uses it. So if there was some software that you could run on the PC to send the e-mails to, which would in turn send the e-mails automatically to a networked printer, that would be cool. Or any solutions that are exactly like Presto, but allow for a Wired or Wi-Fi internet connection instead of dialup.
Any ideas on how to achieve this goal?
Presto is a product that allows you to send e-mail to someone who doesn't have a computer. The e-mail prints out after a dial-up connection is made a few times a day. So they can't respond, but they can get notes and pictures from friends & family. (http://www.presto.com).
I have a friend who wants to have this exact setup, except that it would have to work through an internet connection, and not through dial-up. It seems like dial-up is the only option with Presto.
They have a PC in the basement, but no one uses it. So if there was some software that you could run on the PC to send the e-mails to, which would in turn send the e-mails automatically to a networked printer, that would be cool. Or any solutions that are exactly like Presto, but allow for a Wired or Wi-Fi internet connection instead of dialup.
Any ideas on how to achieve this goal?
I don't know how computer savvy you are, but you could do this with Linux for free using any normal e-mail account.
You'd just need to set up a computer that will grab the e-mail from the server (using fetchmail) and then have the mail processing program (procmail) pipe it into lpr to print it.
posted by tomwheeler at 6:56 AM on November 16, 2007
You'd just need to set up a computer that will grab the e-mail from the server (using fetchmail) and then have the mail processing program (procmail) pipe it into lpr to print it.
posted by tomwheeler at 6:56 AM on November 16, 2007
This thread is closed to new comments.
It is $39, and they just need an email account. It will then check the email account and print out the emails, along with attachments. Set them up with a gmail account, and a filter to only print emails from a specific list of people, you are set.
On a mac, you can put apple scripts in mail.app to perform actions based on who sent the email, so you can have it print an email if it comes from Bob or a group of users.
posted by mrzarquon at 4:33 PM on November 15, 2007