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A Pronouncement
I officially take back anything bad I ever said about Pharos and the Pay-for-Print system.
Okay, that's a lie. I still think that it isn't intuitive (it's easy, but it isn't intuitive; you have to teach almost everyone how to use it the first time), and that when it goes screwy, you've got some interesting problems, and the fact that there aren't printer-card/OneCard-money machines in the printing labs is annoying, but it's so much better than it could be.
. . . You've perhaps guessed that I've had my first experience printing here.
And, in it's favor, it could be a lot worse. It isn't hard, and it isn't expensive (2 centimos per page, which is less than 3 cents, and if you get a card it's slightly cheaper still), and my camera-memory-stick-cum-zip-drive works just fine. HOWEVER. The entire system appears to be run by one woman, who isn't always there, and probably has another job too, and I haven't a clue what the hours of the lab are (never mind her hours; not even her fellow coworker seemed to know when she would be back) - and something that one of the other girls said makes me suspect that they are odd somehow. On the plus side, you can pay with change or with a card (the cards are little paper things like your tenth-cup is free deal from a cafe, or like the cafeteria at my high school), but it just seems so WEIRD to me that I can't just go and print at any point during the computer lab's hours. I was only waiting there for 30 or 40 minutes, but when I told Sonia (former Smith AMS student; is from Córdoba; I ran into her in the lab) that I had an hour and fourty-five minutes before my class, she gave me a sort of well-you'd-better-hope-that's-enough look. And did I mention that there was a line? A short line, but still.
I will say that what I saw of the lab appeared to be less ancient than the classroom support equipment. Which is to say, the computers were somewhat shiny; I brought my laptop (in case the flash drive didn't work) and so didn't actually use them.
Well, I suppose things like this are the reason that I'm in Spain.
Okay, that's a lie. I still think that it isn't intuitive (it's easy, but it isn't intuitive; you have to teach almost everyone how to use it the first time), and that when it goes screwy, you've got some interesting problems, and the fact that there aren't printer-card/OneCard-money machines in the printing labs is annoying, but it's so much better than it could be.
. . . You've perhaps guessed that I've had my first experience printing here.
And, in it's favor, it could be a lot worse. It isn't hard, and it isn't expensive (2 centimos per page, which is less than 3 cents, and if you get a card it's slightly cheaper still), and my camera-memory-stick-cum-zip-drive works just fine. HOWEVER. The entire system appears to be run by one woman, who isn't always there, and probably has another job too, and I haven't a clue what the hours of the lab are (never mind her hours; not even her fellow coworker seemed to know when she would be back) - and something that one of the other girls said makes me suspect that they are odd somehow. On the plus side, you can pay with change or with a card (the cards are little paper things like your tenth-cup is free deal from a cafe, or like the cafeteria at my high school), but it just seems so WEIRD to me that I can't just go and print at any point during the computer lab's hours. I was only waiting there for 30 or 40 minutes, but when I told Sonia (former Smith AMS student; is from Córdoba; I ran into her in the lab) that I had an hour and fourty-five minutes before my class, she gave me a sort of well-you'd-better-hope-that's-enough look. And did I mention that there was a line? A short line, but still.
I will say that what I saw of the lab appeared to be less ancient than the classroom support equipment. Which is to say, the computers were somewhat shiny; I brought my laptop (in case the flash drive didn't work) and so didn't actually use them.
Well, I suppose things like this are the reason that I'm in Spain.