questions for cybercafe

[yasserBasha]

Hi guys ...
I'm about to open my own cyber cafe and I have few questions :

1- How to make shortcut to the master computer so that anyone could access the data i choose to share from any other PC ?
2- How to make a shared folder so that anyone want to print a file -for example- could put it in this folder and make it easy for me to access his pc ? (don't like the idea of sharing printers)

Thanks to ALL of you guys

 

[USAFRet]

Hi guys ...
I'm about to open my own cyber cafe and I have few questions :

1- How to make shortcut to the master computer so that anyone could access the data i choose to share from any other PC ?
2- How to make a shared folder so that anyone want to print a file -for example- could put it in this folder and make it easy for me to access his pc ? (don't like the idea of sharing printers)

Thanks to ALL of you guys

1. Shared folder(s), managed by GPO
2. 2 printers. One for you, another shared among the guest machines.

 

[choucove]

Setting up shared printer access for the public in a situation like this can be a little concerning, yes, because you don't want customers to come in and randomly print off a 200 page textbook on your printers for nothing. Trust me, I've seen this happen, and it's not fun when you're left holding the cost of all that ink and paper when lots of people start taking advantage of it.

So one simple way is like what you are suggesting, where you can set up a sort of "drop box" location for people to send files that need to be printed. You can then use a computer which has the printer installed to access the file in the drop box and print it, but it kind of makes them responsible to come to you with getting something printed, and thus you can also charge a printing fee for it.

However, is this ideal? No, because there are still some things that cannot be readily copied into a drop box location to be printed. For instance, if you are trying to print a receipt from a browser after just making an online purchase. Yes, there are definitely ways around this, but do you want to have to do it for every customer that comes in, because they will not know how to do it.

The best solution would be to set up shared printing to a public use printer. As USAFRet suggested I'd put in a separate one for them and one for you. Post up printing costs, and post them very visibly, so people know they will be responsible for printing out that entire handbook and user guide for their new welding machine. And keep the public use printer someplace where YOU have access to it, so that customers must come up to receive their prints and pay for the printing at that time. This has been about the best method that I can think of really without having to involve more complex controls using domain policies or specialized printing management software which can cost a TON and be a bear to set up and manage.

 

[yasserBasha]

These are really interesting suggestions guys 😀 , and I thank you very much for taking time to answer, but I don't actually like the idea of shared printers , as for printing online documents this can be solved by the "print screen" button and then edit the image by MS office (this takes only few seconds so it's not really a problem).

However I'm new in the networking field so I have no Idea about setting up a "Drop box" folder nor making shortcuts to the Master computer , so any help would be much appreciated

 

[USAFRet]

These are really interesting suggestions guys 😀 , and I thank you very much for taking time to answer, but I don't actually like the idea of shared printers , as for printing online documents this can be solved by the "print screen" button and then edit the image by MS office (this takes only few seconds so it's not really a problem).

And for printing something that is longer than one screen?
You're injecting extra complexity into the customers experience.
Press PrintScreen
Paste into [something] as an image
Edit as necessary
Save in the shared folder or dropbox
Then we can print.

Instead of:
Print

For instance, if I'm creating a resume, I don't want an 'image' of the Word window, pasted into Word or something else. Completely screws up the formatting.
And maybe, I don't want you, Mr Cafe Owner, to have a copy of whatever it is that I wrote. I want to write it, print it, close the application without ever saving. The only place it would exist is on the hardcopy paper.

 

[yasserBasha]

One word : DEEP FREEZE

But thanks for your time, again what about shortcut to the MASTER PC ?

 

[choucove]

I would try to suggest that you remain friendly with those responding to try and help, or help may not continue to respond. I think what USAFRet and I are trying to say is that, from experience, trying to use printing the way you are describing is going to cause great frustration with your customers, which will likewise cause great frustration for you. Think about it this way. Every customer that comes in your door will potentially want to print something. They're not going to know how, so it will be up to you to do it for them.

Creating a shortcut is actually going to be creating a mapped network drive. You first have to put in place many things to have this working properly, so it's not necessarily just one easy step and that's why we haven't given you specific details yet. First, you will need to ensure that you have the proper user account settings on your end client computer and the main, server computer. Is this currently set up in a domain environment, or workgroup environment? Simply put, the server PC will need to share out a folder and allow access to the user (or users) that will be logged in to the client computers. We don't know your current system, or how your user accounts are set up, so this is difficult for us to try and walk you through without knowing much more detail.

Once the shared folder is set up with permissions for the end users, then on each computer system you will need to set up a mapped network drive to the server and the share, such as //COMPUTERNAME/SHAREDFOLDER. Again, this is going to depend on DNS settings and domain settings. If you are in a domain environment you can set up an automatic mapped network drive within the User Properties of each user within the Domain Users and Computers. Otherwise you will need to go to each computer, log in as the end user account, and manually create the mapped network drive. This will show up as a new hard drive on the computer, such as G:/SHAREDFOLDER.