Singing Potatoes
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Sunday, 4 March 2007
Antique-store find
Condescending Linux user

While browsing through an antique store today, I came across a collection of early 20th-century labels for patent medicines and cosmetics. I bought a few of them, scanned them in and put them up on my site for those who are interested in such things. They might make good props for steampunk or Call of Cthulhu games, among other things.

Dr. Lynas' Antiseptic

To scan them in, I set up my new scanner on one of my Linux machines, and installed SANE, which is the Linux equivalent of Windows TWAIN (Technology Without An Interesting Name). SANE stands for "Scanner Access Now Easy", which is a bit of a lie. Partly this was because there was no entry for my scanner in the definition file, but also I had to muck about with device permissions, access groups, inetd configuration and so forth. And I had to reboot before it started working.

I hate saying this, but TWAIN has the advantage in setup; just install a device driver, plug in the scanner and go. On the other hand, SANE lets you plug the scanner into one machine and scan from another, so once you've actually managed to get it set up, it's quite a bit more useful in a networked environment.


Posted by godfrey (link)
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Comments
Ohh! Thanks for making them accessible./ I see ATC applications already!
Posted by Sid on 4 Mar 2007 07:06
Man, now I have a craving for ginger ale.
Posted by Zach on 7 Mar 2007 07:06
As well you should! 'Twill protect you against the flatulent colic and the summer complaint!
Posted by Godfrey on 7 Mar 2007 18:03