Small office or home document scanners

Years ago I spent quite a bit of time with lower-end document scanners and document management systems. Back then there was nothing good for less than $1000, and very little between $1000 and $10,000. HP's solutions were quite horrid, they doubled as paper shredders.

So I was quite interested when I used a Fujitsu fi 4010CU. This USB 2.0 scanner is quite compact and quiet, and it's done well for low volume document scanning at our office. The bundled software is clumsy, but with some tweaking I could get quite nice B&W PDF results (I know what I'm doing though) using Adobe Distiller. The software is not as sweet as the discontinued Scan input software Kodak bundled for years, but it worked.

And the 4010CU is less than $600.

That led me via Google to this site, where one can run a query that reveals many alternatives: Scanners - searchable guide to high-speed document scanners

Nice site! Too bad OS X support is so lacking ...

Reviving an apparently dead firewire port

MacInTouch: timely news and tips about the Apple Macintosh

The integration between OS X and Apple hardware can make it difficult to distinguish hardware from software issues.

David Garozzo describes a remarkable FireWire resuscitation (with no help from Apple):

My father called me last week to tell me that his FireWire port on his 14' G3/600 iBook died and that his AppleCare ran out in March. He said his USB port still works, so he can still hook up his iPod, external hard drive, and his new external DVD burner, but since his iBook's USB port isn't USB 2.0, it would run much slower. Even though his AppleCare had expired, I advised him to call them anyway. They had him boot into Open Firmware and type 'reset-r'. The response was 'unknown'. They had him type it three times, and got the same response each time. Then they told him that he needed a new logic board and that it would cost about $315. He opted to not get it fixed at that time.

This past weekend, I took a look at the computer and couldn't figure out what the problem was. It wouldn't recognize any IEEE device. Looking up the FireWire info in System Profiler showed 'no information' about the FireWire port. Figuring that it couldn't hurt anything, I decided to upgrade the iBook from Panther to Tiger. The install went smoothly, and to my surprise, the FireWire port started working again! System Diagnostics now reports a max speed of 400 mb/sec, and all devices are now recognized.

I'm not sure if any other readers have had an experince like this. I'm very disappointed with my father's call to Apple. I searched the web, and from what I can tell, 'reset-r' isn't a valid Open Firmware command. ...

[There may have been a communication issue confusing the valid 'reset all' with 'reset-r'. -MacInTouch]

AMS VENUS DS-2316B2BK USB Hard Drive External Enclosure

AMS VENUS DS-2316B2BK Black External Enclosure - Retail at Newegg.com

I bought a drive enclosure to use for backups. Specs, reviews, comments.

Specs:

AMS VENUS DS-2316B2BK Aluminum 3.5' USB 2.0 Black External Enclosure - Retail

* Model #: DS-2316B2BK
* Item #: N82E16817145656
* $5.99 FedEx Saver Shipping
* $38 (approx)

Review

• Fan is 80 mm and lies beneath the drive. It's non-standard and not replaceable -- dust may claim it. New it spins with a soft whoosh -- not bad but certainly audible. Far better than the usual fans that blow air pointlessly against the back of the drive. This one looks like it should really, really work.
• Case is aluminum and reasonably compact with good vents and air space beneath the case.
• Drive insertion is very, very easy and fast.
• Power supply is very compact, nice short cords at both ends, switchable.
• USB 2.0 cable is short -- just right.

Comments

Eons ago we bought gear like this based on a brand name or a trusted vendor. Now there are no brand names. Some engineer in China came up with this design, it was built somewhere else, and is probably imported and relabeled by dozens of small companies. How does one know it's any good? Because New Egg has 73 reviews of it with pretty good ratings.

And, if it doesn't work, try again with someone else. The average expected cost will still be low, provided one buys from a vendor (New Egg, Amazon) that has user reviews.

New world.

Update 7/19/05: Thus far, I'm delighted. Great fan (not user serviceable however). Very cool. Quiet. Compact. Reliable. Perfect.

Update 5/30/06: Fan remains very quiet. I can't tell if it runs all the time as it's much quieter than my office. I bought two more enclosures as my home backup had outgrown the removeable cartridges I had used. Nowadays Venus makes versions for SATA as well as IDE ATA drives. The current enclosure supports up to 500GB.

Update 6/1/06: The fan was so quiet because it had stopped. Arrggh. Thanks for the reader whose comment made me suspicious. I noticed the case was hot, and when I opened it up the fan was stopped. A tap restarted it, but of course now I don't trust it. I wish Venus either used better fans, or had a temperature alarm, or both. When the fan is running the case is mildly warm and you can hear a soft whir. Fans are a real curse. There's not temperature control, the fan runs all the time.

Update 11/26/08: More in a later post.

How to install older versions of bundled os x apps into a newer version of the OS

macosxhints - 10.4: Install from 10.2 Software Restore disks on Tiger

Viewer for Microsoft Project Documents

Update 7/1: Alas, this doesn't actually work as I'd expected. It won't allow me to view these MPP files.

Welcome to AdeptTracker

Microsoft doesn't provide a viewer for Microsoft Project documents. This vendor of an alternative solution provides a freeware tool for viewing those documents.

iMac G5 rev 2: a lot cooler?

iMac G5 (Part 11)

Macintouch has done excellent journalism covering the heating and reliability problems with the G5 iMac initial release:

...I have been told recently that Apple is no longer replacing the midplane assemblies, they are now replacing fans with a newly designed fan which tells me they have been having problems with their rev.1 boards. I guess the new rev. 2 boards are being reported all over the net. I can attest that the first version fans were horrible, at least the heat issue was a problem and it certainly didn't do much for quietness.

[A new 1.8GHz Power Mac G5 is almost identical to our 20' 1.8GHz iMac G5 in architecture, but we find it's running a *lot* cooler in the big aluminum case, according to ThermographX - by some 50 degrees F. -MacInTouch]"

The new 20" iMacs are a lot cooler than the prior model. I think they may be safe to buy.

OmniOutliner 3.0.3 is out (via Macintouch)

MacInTouch Home Page: "OmniOutliner 3.0.3 is an outliner and organizer that offers styles, columns, attachments, inline notes, AppleScript support, and other features. This release adds Automator support, improvements to recorded audio and HTML export, speed improvements when editing large outlines, and other changes. OmniOutliner 3 is $39.95 ($69.95 Professional) for Mac OS X 10.2 through 10.4."