Upon arriving home today I was ready to setup and start using our new Fujitsu SnapScan, however I was thwarted by a variety of issues.
Our office has a desktop computer we refer to as the “Money Computer” as that is where first Microsoft Money and now Quicken live. (Money has been discontinued by Microsoft forcing us to make the switch to Quicken.) It’s an elderly machine that was new in perhaps 2005. It’s running Windows XP and does an admirable job as our financial center. However I was unable to get the DVD/CD tray to open, even after sticking a straightened paper clip in the little emergency release hole. So I was unable to install the scanner software on that machine.
Next I tried my ancient PowerBook G4. The scanner software installed without a problem, but I wasn’t able to install Evernote on to that version of Mac OS X. Strike two.
I have a ThinkPad that was running Ubuntu 10.10 that I wasn’t really using for anything, so I formatted its hard drive and started the process of installing Windows XP. I have a copy of XP, and that what was originally on that machine. Installing and updating XP is a laborious process at best, and as I have been distracted throughout the process it only just finished several hours after I started.
Late last year we had talked about getting Sibylle a new laptop as hers is full to overflowing and consequently slower responding. We actually purchased a Gateway from BestBuy and brought it home only to discover they had blundered during their setup of the machine resulting in a dead slow computer. We returned it and rather than exchange it we walked away from the idea for a while.
Tonight we returned to BestBuy and picked up a new Toshiba Satellite for her to have as her laptop. Her current laptop, a Compaq, will now become the new “Money Computer” and we’ll use the old eMachine desktop in the studio. This solves several problems: Sibylle will have a computer capable of importing and editing video files, she have enough room on her computer for all of her files, we’ll have a computer to act as the scanning station and be our money computer, and we’ll gain a machine for general purpose use in the studio.
Tomorrow, once all the rearranging is complete I’ll take a second stab at getting our paperless office setup.