My recent post about a high speed photo scanner showed some good information for those people looking to scan mountains of photos quickly. I wanted to find a cheaper alternative that people could use for a smaller project (perhaps 1000-2000 photos). The solution needed to be a little easier to use than the Kodak I recommended and so I started looking at retails stores, Amazon, mail catalogs, and eBay for something.

What I found worked the best was the Pandigital Photo Scanner (PANSCN06). It’s a slim, light, and reasonably quick photo scanner that scans photos in both 300dpi and 600dpi with supported sizes up to 8.5 inches by 11 inches. It’s also readily available.

Why I chose this scanner.

I needed to get something my wife could use, is easy to understand, and produced acceptable results. There were many flatbed scanners available, but each had the fundamental flaw of requiring a computer to scan photos. Although my previous recommendation required a computer, it was needed because of the sheer amount of photos the scanner was sending to the computer (while simultaneously straightening and cropping each one). Flatbed scanners also required more time laying out each photo on the glass. If you have a few great photos that you want to scan at 2400dpi, a flatbed scanner is the way to go. Otherwise, if you want to scan through a lot of photos really quickly, a stationary document scanner is the best bet.

There are lots of document scanners out there, but none were really touted as “photo” scanners. Many reviews talked up how great a scanner was only to point out that “photos didn’t turn out very well”. They are also very expensive for a simple photo scanner. I noticed that Pandigital made a 4×6 photo scanner, but it had too many limitations (size of photos and 300dpi max resolution). So I landed on the next model up which I felt had the best value in terms of price, quality, and overall value.

The scanner came with the following items:

• Scanning unit
• 512mb SD card
• AC adapter
• Cleaning piece
• Manual
• CD

Using the scanner

Overall, the scanner is very easy to use and I got it up and running in less than 30 seconds. Just plug it in, insert the included SD card (or connect the unit to the computer), and wait until the light turns on. The only option you really have is if you want 300dpi or 600pdi. I highly recommend going with the 600dpi setting.

Cleaning

Unlike professional scanning systems, the Pandigital scanner is fairly hard to clean really well. The scanner comes with a cleaning stick that you insert into the scanner to remove dust. For the most part, this does the job. If some white out gets on the scanning element, its extra hard to remove. I’m not sure how Pandigital would make a compact unit while still giving the customer full access to the scanner for cleaning.

As a side note, all document scanners will need to be cleaned. It’s inevitable and is guaranteed to happen because photos aren’t always clean. It’s very important to clean this scanner every 50-100 photos because unless you connect the scanner to the computer, you may run into an issue where lines start to form on the photos as dust accumulates.

Speed

When scanning, the user is given two options, 300dpi or 600dpi. This option is made by pressing the power button and looking at the indicator light (green = 300dpi, orange = 600dpi). When in 600dpi mode, the scan speed is slower, but acceptable. When running scans at 300dpi, the speed increase is noticeable, but it comes with the price. The pandigital scanner scans in a 600dpi 4×6 photo in about 8-10 seconds each (and 4-5 seconds at 300dpi).

Bottom Line

Pros

Standalone operation (scan directly to SD card without the use of a computer)

Very small (compared to the Kodak scanner)

Auto crops photos (but does not straighten)

Reasonably fast photo scanning for both 300dpi (quicker) and 600dpi (slower)

Cons

Does not correct slanted or skewed photos

Dust can easily add unwanted lines to photos

Hard to extensively clean the scanning element (without removing screws)

The compression used on photos are pretty high (great file sizes, but lower quality)

When finished, I found that the best items to launch from this type of catapult was mini marshmallows commonly found for a few dollars at a grocery store.

I chose a simple design that would be easy for the boys to follow and would allow plenty of time to launch marshmallows at a target. Many designs (including the one provided in the scout handbook) were fairly complex and would require a long time to built. Some I saw were just as big as the scouts themselves. After following these instructions, it only took the scouts about 10 minutes to complete everything and start participating in trying out their new catapult.

If you’d like to print these instructions, download this PDF.

Materials

Instructions

Step 1 – Take 7 of the craft sticks and tie a rubber band tightly around one end.

Step 2 – Tie another rubber band tightly around the opposite end so all 7 sticks are bound together.

Step 3 – Take the remaining 2 sticks and tie a rubber band on one of the ends. Try to tie the band close to the edge of the sticks.

Step 4 – Insert the 7 sticks banded together through the 2 stick bundle as shown in the illustration below.

Step 5 – Tie a rubber band in a cross fashion joining the two pieces. The closer the 7 stick bundle gets to the edge, the more leverage the catapult will have.

Step 6 - Use a few rubber bands and attach the plastic spoon on the end.

If these instructions helped you in anyway, please leave me a comment or link to this page so others can find these instructions as well.

My mom loves to take pictures. She always had a camera with her to make sure that every moment of our childhood was captured. As a result we have tubs and tubs full of pictures hiding in a closet. My goal was to get all these pictures digitized and backed up. Sending them to a scanning service was both very expensive and something we didn’t want to trust a shipping company with. I have heard rumors of people that sent pictures to a US based company only to find out that their pictures were sent to China to save the company money.

To start scanning, we originally purchased a flatbed scanner, but at nearly 30-45 seconds a picture, it was just way too much to really dive in and do a lot of pictures in a short amount of time. When there is 3-4 thousand pictures to go through and scan in, a little research can go a long way.

I found the way to go is by using a high-speed document scanner. Here were my requirements:

• Full color 600 dpi scanning
• Fast scanning
• Double side capacity (so we get those dates and notes on the back of photos)
• Under $500

When I started looking, I found many different great document scanners on Amazon. The problem in general with document scanners is that they we not designed to scan in photos. The feed rollers and separation pads are optimized to grab pieces of paper, not glossy photos. Most of the reviews for the top bestselling scanners indicate they are excellent at scanning regular documents, but are horrible at scanning photos. This is mostly due to the fact that the higher resolution scans are unforgiving to streaks, dust, scratches, and other blemishes. If a speck of dust or dirt gets on the lens of the glass, pictures develop streaks all the way down the photo.

After looking high and low for a high speed photo scanner, I found the Kodak s1220 Photo Scanning system from a YouTube video filmed at an electronics show. It features double-sided scanning, auto-straightening, and of course, fast scanning of photos. The one real downside to using this scanner is that it retails for $1600 which was a deal-breaker for me. It did however meet all of my other requirements and had a lot of great features. There is really not a lot of competitors for high speed photo scanners right now, so nothing is really driving the price down.

After a little more research and looking at comments on Amazon, I found out that the Kodak s1220 photo scanning system is really just some pretty software coupled with an i1220 Kodak document scanner (yup, they actually send you an i1220 instead of an s1220). This scanner has the same exact specifications as the s1200, but is nearly $900 cheaper! That’s some pretty expensive software. There’s also a single sided scanner called the i1210 document scanner that is even cheaper if you don’t want double sided scanning. I also just noticed that my neighborhood Target has a i1220 “rebranded” scanner in the photo section hooked up to one of those photo kiosks.

With all this research, I went ahead found a broken i1220 document scanner for a few hundred bucks on eBay, fixed it up, and downloaded Kodak’s free Capture Lite software. Like many document scanners, the higher the resolution, the slower the scans, but I found that this model scanned documents faster than I could take pictures out of the albums. As a extra, it scanned regular documents in blazing speeds (plus it did both sides) at 45ppm.

Pros:

• Double-sided duplex scanning
• Fast full 600 dpi (1200dpi interlaced) scanning resolution
• Rollers are designed in a way that doesn’t scratch photos
• Software auto-corrects “dust” lines and straightens pictures automatically
• Blank documents are removed automatically (when doing double-sided scanning, this is a key feature to have)
• Price was acceptable if purchased refurbished or used

Cons:

• Windows or Linux only (I’m a Mac fan so this bugs me)
• Capture lite software included can be quite overwhelming to figure out at first and requires a 32-bit system (because of the required software for the “key” if you use a s1220)
• Doesn’t do slides or negatives
• Parts from Kodak.com are way overpriced and their customer service/tech support is absolutely terrible. Let me reiterate this, the RMA process at Kodak for their document imaging process is one of the worst customer service experiences I’ve ever had. If you need to order a part, triple check it is the right part and expect a long 3-4 week wait to return anything even if it is Kodak’s fault.

Tips for scanning using a document feeder.

• I found that by putting RainX on the glass, dust was repelled and didn’t require a swipe of the glass as often
• Getting a can of air can really help reduce the dust, hair, and lint on pictures
• Showing a preview of the pictures using the Capture Lite software allowed you to quickly find any blemishes
• Scanning photos twice (flipping the photos over after the batch and re-scanning) saved time because if you found a blemish or something wrong with the photo, it was really easy to find it’s “twin” and just replace the bad photo instead of finding and scanning the original picture
• Tag people in photos using software such as Picasa or iPhoto. You can then give a DVD of every picture that specific person was in
• Try and keep things as organized as possible. Tackling a dozen pictures is much easier than organizing hundreds
• If you use a different document scanner (and there’s a bunch of different quality ones out there), be sure that the pictures do not scratch on the pickup roller/separation pad when going through the scanner. Some scanners include a plastic “protector” sheet. I think this is pointless. Who wants to put pictures in a plastic sheet before the scan (and subsequently remove each picture after the scan).

After doing some research, I have found the following ways to save email. All of these involves setting up an email program on a computer that can read “POP” email. This older method of email reading is not used as much as the more commonly know standard of “IMAP”, but many, if not all, popular email applications can still read email this way. Please note that when you use any of these methods, you must move all your email out of any custom folders you have setup and in your “inbox”. Choose one of these methods and then move to the next step.

1. Use Gmail’s Import Feature (easiest if you are moving to Gmail anyway)

Google recently implemented a feature that allows you to import all your mail and contacts into Gmail just by providing your username and password. From there, you can use a free feature in Gmail to save all email to a local computer (see instructions below).

2. Puchase a 1-year Yahoo! mail plus subscription (costs money, but doesn’t require workaround)

In order to gain POP access using Yahoo! mail, you must(ish) purchase a $19.95/year subscription called Yahoo! Mail Plus. Once you’ve done this, proceed to the last section to save all email in the inbox to a local computer.

3. Enable POP access for your Yahoo! mail (Using a wordaround)

For some strange reason, if you change the regional language settings to “asia”, you can then follow a link to enable POP access. To enable this setting, login to your Yahoo! Mail and click on your username at the top right (to bring up your account settings). There are other ways of bringing up your account settings, but I find this to be the easiest.

Under the “Account Settings” section, select “Set language, site, and time zone”.

In this section, select “Asia” as your “Regional Site and Language” and then select “Save”.

Go ahead and logout, then log right back in and click on this link. It will direct you to the preferences page to enable POP access for your yahoo account.

http://popfwd.mail.yahoo.com/pf/PopFwd?.done=http://in.f951.mail.yahoo.com/ym/Options&rand=1255761663

Select “Web & POP Access” and choose the option to receive all messages (you can filter them out later). Then click on save and proceed to the next section.

Saving email to a local computer via POP access.

There are many different email programs you can use to save email to a local computer. My personal favorites are Apple Mail or Thunderbird. You could also use MS Outlook, Outlook Express, or Windows Live Mail as well. Since there are so many programs that could be used, I’ll include links on how to setup each program for POP email access and what the Yahoo! Mail settings are.

Incoming Mail server: plus.pop.mail.yahoo.com
Outgoing Mail server: plus.smtp.mail.yahoo.com
Username: Your Yahoo username (without the @yahoo.com at the end)

Password: Your Yahoo password

Configure using Apple Mail

Configure using Thunderbird

Configure using Outlook Express

Configure using Outlook 2003

Configure using Windows Live Mail

For this tutorial, I used my handy-dandy swiss army knife.

1. Start by taking the swiss army knife and inserting the screwdriver end (not the knife!) into the top portion of the drive and gently sliding it across the top. It may be a little difficult at first getting the edge of the screwdriver into the plastic edge.

2. Continue alone the left side of the case with the blade. You may here popping as you go along the edge which is normal.

3. Then move the blade to the other side of the casing until you hear a few more pops when the casing separates itself.

4. When there is sufficient room, finish removing the back piece with your hands. Keep in mind, there are a few more clips that will make noise, this is normal.

5. Here is a picture of the two pieces separated completely. Notice the clips on the back piece. These made the cracking/popping noise when you took it off.

6. To remove the drive, start by taking out 2 rubber fillers at the bottom of the case between the plastic and the hard drive.

7. Here is a picture of the rubber fillers removed.

8. Next, insert the blade into the bottom of the drive and gently pull the drive out of the case. It is not held in by screws or glue, but it is quite snug in the case.

9. Then remove the 4 remaining rubber fillers on the sides (they act like screws).

10. Turn over the hard drive and slide it out of the metal casing.

11. Remove the USB to SATA connector on the top by sliding that off as well.

12. Here is all the pieces laid out and a close up of the hard drive.

Naturally, I wondered why a perfectly good printer would get to this state. I power cycled the printer which revealed the true error:

INFLATE FAILURE
DOWNLOAD FILE NOW
SEND RFU UPGRADE

I looked this error on Google, and found many other people in the same situation with no really good answers. This printer either needed a new formatter board or an RFU firmware update. I thought it would be simple enough to connect to the printer via FTP over the network and force the update, but I noticed that there was no activity displaying on the jetdirect port on the side of the printer. Sure enough, a ping to the printer resulted in lost packets.

At this point, I knew that I needed to directly connect to the printer using a USB cable since there were no other options (besides replacing the formatter board). Using Windows XP or Vista was unfortunately out of the question because I only had access to a Mac. Looking online, I couldn’t find a single resource in order to send a firmware file to the printer. I checked HP business forums, Google, and more with little to no results. After a little experimenting, I figured out what was needed to fix the printer using a Mac. These steps are similar to using a PC, but I found that a Mac was *much* easier after everything was said and done.

1. Get the firmware file from HP’s website. It’s usually in the “Cross operating system (BIOS, Firmware, Diagnostics, etc.)” category. When you visit that category, HP usually shows 3-4 links to firmware files (Mac, Windows, UNIX, etc). Secret here is that they are really all the same RFU firmware file, just compressed using different formats. Go ahead and down the one of choice and save it on your desktop or similar location.

2. Uncompress the files and remove the old compressed file since that will no longer be needed. Once again, I placed my file on the desktop, so I knew where it was.

3. Find a USB 2.0 cable (Type A to B) and plug that into your printer (while it’s on and displaying the error message). Then plug the other end to your computer. Nothing should happen on the computer side.

4. Next, go into the “Print and Fax” System Preferences control panel .

5. Click on the “plus” sign at the bottom left like you are installing a new printer.

6. In the add printer dialog box, make sure that the default icon is selected.

7. Then, you should see a printer in the list (only one in the list) called “HP LaserJet USB Upgrade”. If you do not see this printer (or any printer), you may have a bad cable, but most likely, you’re printer is toast. Click on HP LaserJet USB Upgrade, and your computer will try finding drivers for this type of printer (at this point, your computer has no idea what type of printer this is).

8. Go to “Print Using:” and select “Select Printer Software”.

9. When the list of printers come up, select an HP 4100 series printer driver. You may be wondering why you are choosing the HP 4100 series printer driver and your original printer driver. The answer is fairly simple, it really doesn’t matter what driver you choose except that it needs to the a certain kind that allows your computer to send a regular file to a printer for processing. Most of the HP drivers will do this, to be on the safe side, select the 4100.

10. Next, you’ll want to make sure it’s set as the default printer (you’ll see why in a minute). Although my picture shows that the printer is Offline, it should be Online if it’s still connected to the printer.

11. This next step involves using the terminal. Open the terminal by going to Applications>Utilities>Terminal. You can also perform a spotlight search for it.

12. Once the terminal window is up, type in “lpr” and then a space, and then type in the location of your firmware file, or drag and drop the firmware file (called “cp3505fw_03.020.3.rfu” in my case) on to the terminal window and the OS will do the rest. This command will print a file to the default printer which is why that was set earlier.

13. Press enter, and you should start to see a progress with the printer. Once the file is transferred over, the printer will power cycle and be ready for printing. All network settings should have remained intact. Enjoy! You can remove the printer we just created by clicking on the “-” sign in the print and fax system preference panel.

Extra: For you PC users (XP and Vista), the theory of sending the firmware is the same. The main differences is the dos console and how the printer is added to the system.

Here are some highlights of our trip:

Reed, Dave, and I are hard at work during the Application Development contest. Here, Reed literally singlehandedly writes a sweet console application in Java getting the team 3rd place overall. Dave was the master planner and I worked on a small Microsoft Access application for another portion of the contest.

Landon and Bryce are working hard to develop a Flex program for the Application Development contest.

Here's a shot of other teams competing in the Application Development contest.

Before the ending awards ceremony started, we sat down to a great meal in the conference center.

Here we are at the awards ceremony near the end of our trip. We had an excellent team go this year that won many awards.

For more pictures, check out the official flickr album.

I had an unusual problem with an HP LaserJet 3050 AIO that left me stumped. I received a 3050 back from a customer because it never worked. They mentioned that it would turn on, but they kept getting an unclearable message on the control panel. The error the customer was receiving was “No Paper Pickup”. Immediately I thought that there may be damage to the logic board or some sensor, but I had a hard time finding out where it was. After about 20 minutes of searching I happened across a spring that became “unsprung” and just needed to re-align it in place. Since there are many sensors and springs in the printer, I’ve included pictures of my fix. Please leave me a comment if you found it to be helpful.

The entire back of the 3050 with the sides and back plate removed.

The spring just above the separation pad unit

I seem to be purchasing small gadgets lately and this month has been no exception.  For work, I needed to put together a series of useful video presentations/screencasts for my fellow co-workers. After looking around on the Internet for a good set of headphones, I found the Plantronics brand and decided to give them a go.

Headset quality
The physical headset felt pretty solid even though it was entirely made out of plastic as most headsets are today. It folded nicely for travel, however it didn’t lay flat so be sure and consider this before slamming it in a briefcase.

Sound quality
Listening to music and other media was pleasant. The included USB sound card helped to digitize the sound from the computer although it was still converted to an analog signal. Overall, I did like using the headset to listen to podcasts, music, and movies.

Recording quality
This is where I think the Plantronics brand shines. The recording quality was very good with little interference, static, and other annoyances. With a little base enhancement help from Audacity or Garageband, these puppies worked great right out of the box. I find them ideal for screencasts, podcasting, or using them with skype or similar program.

Overall I enjoy using this headset. Since I’m on a MacBook Pro, capatibility was a concern, but the included USB sound card worked great out of the box with no drivers or extra software needed.

The MF4690 is a compact yet speedy multifunctional all-in-one. I was looking for a printer that had a small footprint, but came with many features that I needed for my business. I tried many HP printers, but the scanning and network integration left me wondering which direction HP was headed. The loss of quality on the latest LaserJet printers pushed me into looking at Toshiba, Bother, and finally Canon printers.

I’ve found that Canon printers are generally little less than HP printers, but the toner is a bit more expensive. The printer engine is similar between the two manufactures (in fact, HP leases the technology from Canon). I believe that Canon’s strategy is selling a cheaper printer and making up for the difference in profits through toner. This ensures that the printer needs to last longer.

After getting this printer out of the box, it was noticeably small in comparison to my previous HP LaserJet 3390. The cartridge is a bit smaller, but it’s should suffice for my needs of 2,000 pages @ 5% coverage.  The speed of printing is at 21ppm which is also just fine for my occasional printing. I require most of my printed material to be double-sided so a duplexer was a must.

The MF4690 has some nice features including scan-to-email, scan-to-flash drive, and scan-to-network drive. I tried to configure the device to use my websites email but I was blocked by my ISP from using outbound email ports. I tried Gmail’s secure ports but was unable to get it to work. So for now I just scan in the documents to a flash drive and email them with my computer which has worked out just fine.

Overall, I’m impressed with the quality and size of this all-in-one. It’s a little more expensive then other models Canon offers, but the scanning functionality make it worth it to me. I expect this printer to be a part of my business for quite some time.

Pros: Small footprint. Scan-to-flash drive is fast and efficient. Fast print speeds. Networks well with Macs and PCs.

Cons: Couldn’t get scan-to-email feature to work with Gmail, provides no errors related to my issue. Randomly “calibrates” every 24 hours or so which is something I’ve never seen a black and white laser do.  When the toner is low, an “alarm” is consistently on make it difficult to scan in anything or use the printer, it also doesn’t go into energy saver when in “alarm” mode. ]]> http://www.devincollier.com/2008/07/20/canon-mf4690-laser-printer-all-in-one-review/feed/ 0