How does this affect things if I want to print from my personal computer?

I wondered the same thing when I saw they were using PaperCut.

Since these networked printers are networked via TCP/IP and not a centralized print server (right?), the way PaperCut works is via the client-side application that reports back to a centralized server.

Are we still able to print to say EECH 105/7 (the labs) from a personal computer? Has anyone tried?

If it's *.printer.mst.edu, they all go through a centralized server. All of those addresses point to the same lpr server, and it has an internal database of queue names and which printer they point to, so it takes the lpr queue name from the print job and sends it to the right printer (which have a network address, but I forget what the format is). But if there's no authentication to printer.mst.edu, it doesn't know who is printing what, unless it cross references your IP with netdb but I just don't see them going through all that trouble (if Paper Cut is even capable of that?)

If you try to print from your personal computer with out the client on your computer then you cannot print from your personal computer to a networked CLC printer. The print server gets the "ok" from Paper Cut to print.

So assuming IT is uber smart and setup the network printers to filter out all print requests except from the IP of the print server... doesn't sound like you can get around the print restrictions.

Unless, of course, you were to alter the PaperCut client and have it report back someone else's username... but that'd just be horribly wrong and highly tracable.