The 2005 Lockard Reunion is being held in North Carolina in a month or so, and I’d like to be prepared this time. The last reunion was a resounding success, bringing Jen’s father’s family together in Orlando for a fun weekend of swapping stories, photos, and history while staying in the Land of the Rat (and providing an opportunity to see Ms. Bonny Rose for the first time.) I was fortunate enough to meet many folks who I’d heard of but not met, including Jane, the matriarch of the family, who could have passed for a Dugan easily in personality and likeness.
One of the incredible things about the Lockards is the amount of historical information they have in their collective posession. We were handed boxes of old photographs, and a good portion of the visit was spent filling in the names of the proud-looking people who stared back at us from the yellowing prints. In an effort to make copies of the photos (many of which are the only ones in existence), I tried to shoot as many as I could in macro mode with my digital camera, but the effort was unscientific and ultimately dissapointing.
This time, I’m bringing the laptop and a flatbed scanner, so that we can continue archiving the pictures and make CD’s for people to distribute. Our current scanner is a third-hand UMAX with minimal support for the Mac and no software for OS X. The software is a buggy OS9 port from Windows that crashes more than it works.
I’m looking for a low-cost replacement that’s portable and native to OS X, but I can’t seem to find a decent recommendation online. (One of the Google search result links even bounced me to a porn site, which was a little disturbing, as I was sitting at my desk at work.) The supported scanners on the Apple site are all models I can’t find that currently ship, so I’m stuck with making educated guesses. When I find something and buy it, I’m going to post the results here so that somebody may be able to benefit from my experience. Right now it appears that I’m leaning towards the CanoScan LiDE 35, which has some form of Mac driver (I’d really, REALLY prefer a Photoshop plugin) and is small enough to carry, but unfortunately only has USB 2. FireWire seems to be a $200 add-on for any brand. Anyway, I’m heading to the Office Depot to see if they have one available, and I’ll report back on my findings.
Update: I just got an email reply from a fellow who had posted about a similar search on his weblog:
That seals it.
I have a scanner that I never use..You can have it if you want it. Ill ask Jason to tell you the info on it cause he knows more about it than I do. Sounds bad..but I leave him to fiddle with the electrical equipment. I bought it 2 years ago, and I never used it. Not because I wasnt interested in using it, but because my PC is a huge POS and doesnt work half the time…therefore…rendering the scanner virtually useless. Let me know if you are interested.