So around-ish February.. when I was full on Florida.. we asked Sydney’s folks to give us the huge box of unorganized photos they have so I could scan them and put them online.

The task was daunting.. but here is how I overcame: Batch scanning. I used Linux, or course, and scanned the full width and breadth of my scanner at 600 dpi which was it’s max resolution, I later lowered it to 300 since the quality of the scan was beating the quality of the print by a very wide margin.  I’d scan “sets” into X-Sane, then seperate them using Gimp.

I’m happy to say.. that this weekend after months of not really working on it at all.. I completed the scanning part of the project, right now I’m separating the pictures and then they will be available in the Family Gallery.  I’m not entirely certain how many pictures there will be total, but I scanned in about 800 this weekend.

-Todd

I have 4 virtual monitors on the left, 2 on the Right.. and i can’t move windows between them.. but i think this is neat so.. i think i’ll keep it this way. One of the hurdles to overcome was to install another browser, Firefox tells me it’s open already if I open it in both windows, so I installed Flock! since it’s really just Firefox with some Social stuff on it..

I’ve decided to make this Linux, my only OS at home, except my mac.. comon.. I can’t ditch OSX.. really.

I’ll probably occasionally boot into Vista.. but I’ll do my best not to

I have been working with Family Members and Friends and have been suggesting for some people a permanent move to Linux.. especially for people who tell me “I only use my PC for internet and Email” and usually the email is web based.

I’m Gonna have to roll it out slow.. for example: My Mother has 2 PC’s a laptop and a desktop, Linux is well suited for her, it’s fast has many little games, and all she uses is Internet, Email, And PhotoShop. PS might have been a breaker.. until I heard about GimpShop.. it’s a plugin you can install that rearranges the Gimp buttons and options and makes them look like PS.

I’ve tried it and it’s great.

Firefox is of course already available on Linux, and she’s been using that for a few years now.  And I will probably use evolution as her email client, and install as many of the Gnome Games and KDE Games as I can, the rest of her games *may* install well under Wine.

I could see my Mother having great Success switching to Linux.

Why would I do this? I think it’s obvious.. I’d like to see someone using a legit up to date community supported OS than say. .. an out of date frequently attacked OS or.. even worse one that can’t receive updates any longer due to a greedy company deciding that is the best way to get at people using a product it would like to stop supporting anyhow.

I am hoping to have 5 people converted by the end of the year.. 

Thats how I got the Beater, it’s a laptop my brother had salvaged from his work, then the Motherboard on it popped. He asked if I could fix and I tried, but no dice, he said trash and I put it in my closet instead, about 6 months later I found a Mobo for it, and Viola.. cheap laptop. It’s more or less equivelent to a Dell D-600.

Anyhoo.. it recently ran a Windows OS and on a whim I put WoW on it to see if it would run, and it did pretty slowly, but it did.. I have other wow machines… so i removed it.. then later on installed Linux on it (Linux Mint), I was curious to see if Wine has realy gotten better as they say…

All I seriously had to do was copy over the WoW Folder from my Vista64 machine, and it started right up.. a little artifacting, so I lowered all the video Res, and ran it in Full screen.
I have no real plans to play it.. but it was nice to see it work.