Getting Your Paper Ready To Scan
November 26, 2009
Photo by ricardodiaz11
Even the best scanners or copiers with document feeders can jam or pick up double sheets sometimes. Aside from picking a great scanner, there are some things you can do with the paper to get it ready to scan.
Our friends over at the ScanSnap Community site have posted a primer on what to do with your paper to keep your ScanSnap scanning in tip-top shape. Of course, this would apply to any document feeder equipment.
You watched the video on how to clean your ScanSnap. You saw how to change the consumables. But you still experience occasional double feeds. Believe it or not, you could be causing the problem!
Preparing your paper for scanning is just as important as keeping your ScanSnap clean, so we created this short three step primer on paper prep.
So, do you have any tricks other than “The Fan”, “The Taper”, or “The Wrinkle”? Let us know in the comments.
Pixily Provides Storage Online and via USB, DVD, or Hard Drive
November 24, 2009
We have written about Pixily before. They’re a document scanning, digitization, and management service.
They recently did an interesting blog post where they outline some of the other options they have for storing the data you send them.
Normally, when you send services like this your documents, receipts, etc., they are stored online. However, when you have a lot of data (or don’t feel comfortable leaving your information only on a third party service), you can request your data be put on DVD, USB sticks, or even a hard drive.
When you sign up with Pixily document scanning service, we give you options as to where your data can be stored. In addition to online data storage, Pixily provides data storage in the form of DVDs, USB memory sticks, and external hard drives. Options are great, but you may be wondering which one is right for you. Size, price, and storage methods will determine the best storage medium.
The blog post does a good job outlining the options. Here is the pricing:
Anyone out there use these types of services like Pixily? Do you keep everything online, or do you prefer to have the data sent to you too?
Compare Your Documents Online With CompareMyDocs
November 19, 2009
I’m sure you’ve been there… someone sends you a bunch of documents and you need to figure out which one is the latest, or what the changes are between them.
There are a number of tools to do that, but if you just want to do a quick and dirty comparison without messing around with a bunch of software, enter CompareMyDocs.com
CompareMyDocs is a free service (in Beta) that lets you upload .rtf, .doc, or .docx files and do a simple comparison.
The interface is dead simple. Select which files you want to compare, hit Compare, and it will load them up and show you the differences.
It only works with documents that don’t have a lot of formatting like tables etc., but it’s still a cool concept to check out.
If you need to compare documents, how do you do it?
(via Lawyerist)
ABBYY FineReader For ScanSnap Update For Snow Leopard OSX 10.6 Now Available
November 18, 2009
When it rains it pours. When Fujitsu released their ScanSnap Update For Snow Leopard, the missing piece was the OCR provided by FineReader. They said it would be released by ABBYY soon, and as of today, it’s out.
The update is for the ScanSnap S1500M and S510M.
Click Here To Download The FineReader Snow Leopard Update. It’s down at the bottom.
You know the deal.. let us know in the comments how the update worked out for you!
Amazon Kindle Comes To Canada!
November 17, 2009
Photo by sashafatcat
It’s a little known fact that Canadians are in fact very jealous of Americans. Why? Not because of any political or economic reason, but because they always have to sit and watch as those south of the border get cool stuff like Hulu and the Kindle.
Well, at least one of those problems is solved. Recently I posted about the international launch of the Amazon Kindle, which at the time excluded Canada.
Today it was announced that Hosers from Coast to Coast can get their own Kindle love. The US and International 6″ Kindle is available in Canada, effective immediately.
It’s still $259 US, and you can pick it up at, of course, Amazon.
Here is the Canada coverage map as linked from Amazon’s Kindle page.
Any Canadians taken the plunge yet? Let us know how it works out for you.
Fujitsu ScanSnap Update For Mac OSX Snow Leopard Now Available
November 13, 2009
Just got notified from Fujitsu so I am posting now. I haven’t tried it yet so I am sure there will be updates later.
Fujitsu announces ScanSnap Mac OS X v10.6 Snow Leopard Update for ScanSnap S1500M, S300M, S510M, and S500M.
Updating select ScanSnap models listed above is a two part process. The first update restores features associated with ScanSnap Manager and the second update restores features assciated with FineReader for ScanSnap.
Note: These updates are for compatibility with Snow Leopard only. If you are using an earlier Mac OS, do not install these updates.
The updates are available here. Good luck and please let us know how your installation goes.
Update #1 Nov 14/09: Some users are reporting that the patch won’t install because it is saying “…could not be installed on this computer because the target ScanSnap Manager is not installed”, even when it is. User Bob in the comments below reports:
Make sure your old ScanSnap Manager folder is at the root level in your Applications folder – otherwise the updater will not see it and give you that error message.
Thanks Bob!
Update #2 Nov 14/09: As others have mentioned, so far only the ScanSnap Manager portion has been fixed, not the FineReader OCR part. Looks like that will still be coming. From Fujitsu’s website:
Step 7: The download for FineReader for ScanSnap update to Snow Leopard will be hosted by ABBYY but is not yet available. If you have already subscribed to be notified by Fujitsu regarding the Snow Leopard updates, an email will be sent to you when it is posted.
Please click on the following link to be notified by email when the Snow Leopard update for FineReader is available for ScanSnap S1500M and S510M.
https://www-s.fujitsu.com/us/services/computing/peripherals/scanners/sl_form.html
So, if you are still waiting for the FineReader update, you can sign up for notification from Fujitsu by clicking the link, or, of course, stay tuned here.
Update #3 Nov 19/09: The ABBYY FineReader for ScanSnap Snow Leopard Update is now available.
ScanSnap Meets The Kindle – My Head Explodes
November 12, 2009
The Fujitsu ScanSnap and the Amazon Kindle are two devices that lots and lots of people love. What happens when they are used together? Lots and lots of happiness!
Over at the ScanSnap Community site, Megan Fowler did a post outlining how she used her ScanSnap S1500 to scan documents in to her Kindle DX prior to a long flight.
Recently, I went on a family vacation that involved a plane ride to our destination. During our five hour plane ride in coach, I did not want to deplete my laptop battery trying to read various articles and business documents that I didn’t get around to reviewing prior to leaving. My laptop battery was better served as movie entertainment for my three young boys during the flight. Traveling light is a must when we travel, therefore carrying around a ½ ream of paper of reading materials is not an option. My solution was to load my Kindle DX full of scans of various articles I had clipped from magazines, white papers my boss had handed me to read, details of various sightseeing places I wanted to visit and our favorite family recipes to make during our vacation.
For your Kindle users out there, of which I am unfortunately not one, have you scanned PDFs in to your Kindle? How about the Kindle 1 or Kindle 2?
For The Geeks: How SpiderOak is different than other backup providers
November 10, 2009
Being on the geekier side of the spectrum (as my wife is happy to remind me as I am hooking a Mac Mini up to our TV), I really like hearing about the inner workings of the software that we use. Too often things are dumbed down so much that they aren’t actually saying anything.
SpiderOak, an online backup and sync provider that I mentioned before, has no such problem on their blog.
Take for example their most recent post: Why and How SpiderOak architecture is different than other online storage services: The surprising consequences on database design from our Zero-Knowledge Approach to privacy.
It goes to great length talking about why they designed the system like they did, and what some of the advantages and disadvantages are. How often do you hear about software companies bringing up their disadvantages?
That said, a surprising benefit is the implications for total service cost. You may have noticed that SpiderOak offers some of the best pricing per gigabyte for online storage available anywhere. There are other factors contributing to this, but it definitely helps that SpiderOak clients handle most of the database work. The server’s role is mostly relegated to data storage and retrieval. This lets us focus on building servers with very dense storage without the need for high speed databases and lots of system memory to run them in. (Although some of those needs reappear for servicing functions like Web-Access and SpiderOak Shares.)
For us, regardless of the advantages and drawbacks of the decisions we made, the choice has always been clear. We set out to build a backup system we ourselves felt comfortable using which is why zero-knowledge privacy was always the right path for us.
The post is a good read and gives the impression (hopefully true) that SpiderOak knows what they are doing.
Anyone else have any geeky software company blog posts they want to share? Let us know in the comments.
Use A Highlighter With A ScanSnap S1500 To Choose Searchable Text
November 5, 2009
Fujitsu has recently done a video that shows how you can use a highlighter (yes, a real physical highlighter) with a ScanSnap S1500 to choose which parts of a document you want to be searchable.
Basically, you go into ScanSnap Manager and check the setting “Set the marked text as a keyword in the PDF file”. Then when you scan it in, it will detect which parts of the documents are highlighted.
Unfortunately this only works on black & white documents, but still pretty cool.
Applescript: Easily convert PDF documents to JPG or PNG
November 3, 2009
There are, of course, a million ways to convert PDF documents to JPG or PNG files. However, sometimes you just want something quick and easy.
A while ago, reader AS pointed me out an Applescript droplet written by Martin Michel over at MacScripter.
AS mentioned that it would be nice to have a version that converts to PNG as well. Being nothing if not nice, I used my almost non-existant Applescript/Python skills to convert Martin’s script to output PNG. All credit for this goes to Martin.. I just did some modifications.
Here’s how to do it:
PDF To JPG
- Go to http://macscripter.net/viewtopic.php?id=25350
- Download PDF2JPG
- Unzip it
- Drag a PDF or multiple PDFs onto the icon
- Select the resolution (or accept the default)
- A JPG file will be created for each page in the PDF
PDF to PNG
- Download PDF2PNG from here
- Drag a PDF or multiple PDFs onto the icon
- Select the resolution (or accept the default)
- A PNG file will be created for each page in the PDF
Hope this helps some of you. I know they will come in handy for me. Thanks AS and thanks Martin Michel! Let me know how it works out for you.
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