File, Print Fedex Kinkos
A couple of months ago, I carped about Avis' SmartClient being neat but largely impractical. In the interest of equal time, File, Print Fedex Kinkos' is something I find useful. The computers are so slow at the local Kinkos, printing a color tabloid schematic can be a 20 minute affair (at 45 cents/min). It's routinely a $20/40-minute thing--with the File, Print client, I offload all the time and work to the store and it costs me about a buck-eighty per print. Much better... for me at least.
Additional note: the client itself is nicely executed. Small, responsive with multi-mb files. Well played. Mimeo also bears mentioning here, but they lack the pick up option and it doesn't seem as convenient for ultra-small batches like I'm doing right now. The Mimeo client is also impressive; it trades some of the simplicity and ease-of-use of the Kinko's client for what appears to be a more extensive feature set. The next time I need manuals or other volume docs, they would definitely go back in the mix.
This would all be best filed under the Dept. of Duh: naturally rich clients like these make sense when they are consistent with the seamless execution of a business need. In both the case of Mimeo and Kinko's, they're extending client-side rich applications/interactions, namely File | Print. Switching gears to a browser-based app is an impedence and this is where keeping it rich makes all the sense in the world. Rich printing interaction also just makes sense because that's what users have been conditioned to expect since the rise of the GUI--as metaphors go it's a time-honored chesnut. In the case of Avis, none of these things were really true. If anything, booking car reservations is an interaction we're accustomed to doing thing since the mid-/late-90's.