[bksvol-discuss] Re: Introduction/Possibly Difficult Question...
- From: "Chris Hofstader" <cdh@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 25 May 2008 07:54:05 -0400
Hi,
The problem on the XP machine turned out to be that the PC was so old that
it had both USB 1.xx and 2 ports. I had forgotten this and plugged the
scanner into a USB 1 which, instead of giving useful error messages, acted
differently each time. When I changed ports, I was able to run all of the
diagnostics successfully.
I hope to get the book scanned today but, because it's on pretty low quality
(soft) paper, I think it will need a lot of babysitting to ensure a good
scan without paper jamming problems.
I'll send you, Jamal and Jim Homme copies as soon as I get it scanned and
maybe run a spell checker. I'll probably also set up
"BlindNerdBookClub@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" today or tomorrow so we can have a place
people can go with requests on which we can take action.
BTW: Did your gift subscription start working?
cdh
-----Original Message-----
From: bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Jackie McBride
Sent: Saturday, May 24, 2008 2:00 PM
To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: Introduction/Possibly Difficult Question...
Chris:
I sent u a note on the programming list--did u get it--requesting u to
send me the error message.
The nice thing about what u 2 are doing is that u can scan & Susan can
validate, thereby getting the book in2 collection immediately. Just
make sure you're both signed up to be volunteers.
If you've got skype let me know & maybe we can talk this thru
together. Did u buy omnipage separate or did it come w/the scanner?
On 5/24/08, Chris Hofstader <cdh@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Hi,
>
>
>
> I've been working as a contractor for BSO for some time now and have been
a
> member for a very long time. A few friends of mine on the blind
programming
> mailing list and I wanted to find a way to get our very nerdy books
scanned
> and onto Bookshare.org. I volunteered to get a scanner and my sighted
wife
> volunteered to do a lot of verification and add textual augmentations to
> describe diagrams and such. In theory we were off and running.
>
>
>
> Disaster one hit when we found out that our trusty, albeit ancient, Epson
> scanner had stopped working and that there were no drivers for it to be
used
> with Vista, now mostly a requirement in our household. So, undeterred, I
> surfed over to the newegg.com web site and started searching for a
> replacement scanner that had one requirement - a reasonably sized document
> feeder.
>
>
>
> I came upon two that sounded pretty good. One was an Epson with a 30
sheet
> document feeder and the other was the Xerox DocuMate 152. Both cost about
> $350 and because the Xerox supported duplex scanning and had a 50 sheet
ADF,
> I chose it.
>
>
>
> At this point, dismay turned into anticipation as we waited for the shiny
> new scanner to arrive at our house which it did late Wednesday afternoon.
> Like kids on Christmases Eve we had to wait to open it the following day
as
> that evening had already been booked.
>
>
>
> Susan, my lovely wife, took the thing out of its box early Thursday,
> assembled the small number of parts one needs to attach and started
loading
> the software. Here is where the real fear and loathing starts. First
off,
> the document says nothing about having to download special drivers for
> Vista; the box says "Vista Ready" and the installation routine says
nothing
> about downloading anything special for the newish OS. OF course, at the
end
> of the list of instructions, it gave a URL for getting the Vista drivers
> but, by that time, we had already ground poor Susan's main PC to a near
> haul. Fortunately, Vista has restore points so she was able to
> automatically back out most of the install and get the rest out via the
> control panel.
>
>
>
> We then attached the device to an old XP machine that we use for backups
(we
> have a pair of monstrous external drives that mirror each other and hold
all
> of our important data attached to it). This is a five or six year old
> absolutely vanilla Dell with nothing special that might cause hardware
> conflicts.
>
>
>
> Following the instructions on the installation CDs to the letter of the
law
> (not exactly an easy task with JAWS) I got everything to install without
any
> crashes and only the typical reboots that accompany most any installation
> procedure. It was now time to turn on the beast and give it a try.
>
>
>
> I powered it on using its own power switch and opened OmniPage 15. JAWS
> says for help using OmniPage hit F1 twice quickly. Often JAWS keystrokes
> teach me a bit about the application so I took a look at what they had.
It
> turned out to be documentation on how to use OmniPage 10.0 with JAWS and
> said that it didn't necessarily work with other versions. JAWS worked
> poorly with version 15 but good enough to try to get the scanner going.
>
>
>
> I went to the OmniPage 15 File/Get Page/Scan menu and hit ENTER. This put
> me into a dialogue that asked if I wanted to download the latest scanner
> database and then choose which one I wanted to use with my hardware. I
> followed the instruction and on the next page of the wizard, chose the top
> one of three drivers available for the DocuMate 152. It then told me that
> not all tests were run but gave me only a "finish" button to proceed which
I
> pressed.
>
>
>
> OmniPage then told me that an unspecified error had occurred. I tried the
> other two drivers with identical results (except once when I did get an
> error message but for no reason obvious to me the pages I had in the ADF
got
> sucked through the scanner. I fiddled about with all sorts of different
> settings that looked like they might be helpful and even when to the
> scanners and cameras page in Control Panel only to crash while moving
> through its tabs.
>
>
>
> So, utter dismay and despair, fear and loathing.
>
>
>
> I called the 800 number for Xerox technical support and connected with a
> pretty well uninformed individual who, after having me try a few things,
> said that she would have to call back on Tuesday afternoon and do
something
> using remote access to take over my PC to get it figured out. More fear
and
> loathing as I had forgotten this was a holiday weekend.
>
>
>
> I tried a few more things with the device and made no progress.
>
>
>
> A relatively low cost scanner with a 50 page duplex ADF would be great for
> scanning whole books. Said scanner that sits like a toaster on my desk is
> of no use to anyone.
>
>
>
> So, after my long tale of disappointment and misfortune, does anyone here
> have any ideas about how to get a Xerox DocuMate 152 running either on XP
or
> Vista?
>
>
>
> Frustrated,
>
> cdh
>
>
--
Jackie McBride
Please join my fight against breast cancer
<http://teamacs.acsevents.org/site/TR?px=1790196&pg=personal&fr_id=3489>
& Check out my homepage at:
www.abletec.serverheaven.net
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