07 September 2010

Scanner!

I ponied up for a good one, a Fujitsu S1500M. Despite free delivery from the UK version of buy.com, it arrived less than 20 hours after ordering(!), and I've set it up and started scanning. I still expect devices such as this to be rickety and error-prone. So far, it is vastly exceeding my expectations. It is slick, quick, and does pretty much exactly what I want it to do. And I've used the included software to set my default profile to one that automatically shunts scans directly into evernote. So I put a doc in the feed try, press one button, and a few seconds later I have a new pdf in evernote. I've scanned some old school reports from the boys, one of which was A4 on thick stock, color printing, comb bound. After pulling out of the binding, I dropped it in and pushed the futuristic blue scan button. It automagically performed dual-sided scanning. Another was on thin A5, stapled, with some bent corners. No problem. So far, it just works.

Virtual document archival is a problem I've been pondering for years. Seems like a good time to be able to sort it finally.

06 September 2010

Zero History

Gibson's latest: highly recommended. Good to read Pattern Recognition and Spook Country beforehand, but not mandatory. In fact, I read Spook Country first, then PR, now ZH. Was a bit sad getting near the end, as I suspect the characters won't be appearing in any further books. But well worth it. Does not edge Spook Country off its pedestal for sheer brilliance (reading that was pure revelatory bliss) but not far off. Charming and a pleasure to read.

04 September 2010

Scanner?

Evernote makes me want to buy a scanner. Bizarrely, some institutions still insist on transferring information on paper. This does me no good as I am terrible at hardcopy file & retrieval paradigms. Now I can scan everything and dump it to my cloud brain for searching from anywhere. I have no idea what to look for in a scanner, though.

Shirts

I've picked up a possibly bad habit of buying shirts from tm lewin. They are always on sale, 5 for a dollar or something like that. They are a bit hit or miss. Some of them end up great, many so-so. Probably all made in china. I have occasionally bought nicer-quality shirts elsewhere, and liked them. I'm mulling getting some very high-quality shirts actually made for me. Not sure if it's worth it. Although my doctor did instruct me to buy better-fitting shirts.