An increasing number of incidents involving the Pharos Pay-4-Print system caused LAN Technologies staff to have to frequently visit each Pharos print station to place "Out of Order" signs on them when there was a problem with the server. A solution was needed to quickly inform the public that the pharos stations were not available, and direct them to another location that they could print, if possible. It's really a very simple windows application that constantly polls a web service at defined intervals to check and see if it should be marked out of order. If so, it closes the Pharos station application and shows itself. It continues to poll and hides itself when it is no longer needed and reopens the Pharos station application.

The system is administered by a web page that can be accessed by any authorized personnel. This interface allows the user to quickly set messages for display on one individual print station or all of them.