Tag Archives: pdf

Fujitsu ScanSnap Counts Quality Over Quantity

Product: ScanSnap S1300 Manufacturer: Fujitsu Wired Rating: 6 SCANNER ROUNDUP Are you a paper hater? A new crop of portable, USB-powered scanners can convert the mess on your desk from a dusty collection of dead trees into pure clean electronics. Apparent Doxie Canon imageFORMULA P-150M "Scan-tini" Fujitsu ScanSnap S1300 Plustek AD450 If quality is your concern, the Fujitsu ScanSnap S1300 is your portable scanner of choice: It produced the clearest, best-looking images of the scanners we tested, largely thanks to its big, solid document feeder, which holds up to 10 pages. That means pages go in straighter, which also helps keep the scans looking good. When it did get hung up (on a wrinkled sheet torn from a legal pad) it was easy to open the ScanSnap and clear the jam. Fujitsu has been touting its scanners as especially Evernote-friendly, which is a boon for users of the increasingly popular note management software. In fact, you can get a discount on Evernote Premium when you buy a ScanSnap . However, setting up the scanner and getting it to work with Evernote was a bit complicated. After installing the software from the provided DVD (it takes up more than 1 GB of hard drive space), you need to do some manual adjustment of various settings before it will sync with Evernote. The ScanSnap comes with OCR software for turning scanned images into text and data, and can also generate Word or Excel documents from scanned pages. If you're truly serious about quality, speedy scanning, you might look to the S1300's bigger brother, the S1500: a desktop model that can digitize big sheafs of paper at about three seconds per page.  WIRED Delivers crisp, clear images. 10-sheet document feeder keeps pages straighter than other scanners. Easy to clear jams when they do happen. Software supports scanning to PDF, Word documents, and other formats. Reasonably quick at 10 seconds per page. TIRED The largest of the scanners we tested. Bloated software suite takes over 1 GB of hard drive space. Requires a series of manual steps to get working with Evernote.
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Plustek’s AD450 Scans What Others Won’t

Product: AD450 Manufacturer: Plustek Wired Rating: 5 SCANNER ROUNDUP Are you a paper hater? A new crop of portable, USB-powered scanners can convert the mess on your desk from a dusty collection of dead trees into pure clean electronics. Apparent Doxie Canon imageFORMULA P-150M "Scan-tini" Fujitsu ScanSnap S1300 Plustek AD450 It ain't pretty, and the AD450's software looks like a refugee from the 1990s, but it can get the job done, if the job means scanning paper, performing OCR, turning business cards into contacts, or even making copies of ID badges. One of the largest scanners we tested, the AD450 doesn't win many points on looks. But it does have some unique features. Need to scan credit cards or conference badges? It's alone among portable scanners in this roundup in being able to handle thick plastic cards easily. The AD450 also sports three separately configurable action buttons. So rather than fiddling around with software to decide how to scan a document (to generate a PDF, a BMP, or a Word document, for instance) you can assign each button to a different function. Insert your documents, then press the appropriate button, and the scanner delivers the files into a folder you designate. Scanning to the cloud? For that, you're almost on your own: You can set the AD450 to drop PDFs it creates into a single folder, and then set Evernote (or other apps) to watch that folder and upload anything that comes into it. But there's no built-in synchronization with cloud apps, as with some other scanners. The AD450 may be flexible, but it's not especially fast: It took about 15 seconds to scan each sheet, plus processing time. It can scan both sides of a sheet simultaneously, but that will add to the processing time. In our tests, it took one minute 45 seconds to scan 5 double-sided sheets to a PDF. WIRED Scans one- or two-sided. Comes with software to scan business cards, scan to Word documents, PDFs, and more. Has a special feeder for scanning credit cards or plastic ID badges. TIRED Only compatible with Windows. Slow. Bulky. Software is complicated, with confusing interface. No built-in support for cloud services.
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Amazon’s Third-Generation Kindle Keeps e-Reader Fire Burning

Product: Kindle Third Generation With 3G + Wi-Fi Manufacturer: Amazon Wired Rating: 9 Though Amazon.com won't say how many units it has sold, its Kindle e-reader has been a tremendous success for the e-commerce giant. Some analysts estimate Amazon sold 3 million before this year, and will double that total in 2010. Despite some predictions that the iPad and other Web-oriented tablets would start the Kindle doom clock ticking, its continued popularity bodes well for the future of single-purpose long-form reading devices. The new third-generation Kindle only makes that future brighter. All its basic virtues—instant downloading from an abundantly stocked store, light weight, ability to read in sunlight—are still there, with significant improvements in text readability, physical design, and battery life. And the Kindle's march towards an inevitable double-digit price point continues, with a new, Wi-Fi only version priced at $139, fifty dollars cheaper than the standard 3G wireless version (which also adds Wi-Fi.) Both versions begin shipping on August 27, but are back-ordered well into September. Compared to the 2007 original (whose weird shape was the butt of cruel jokes from design snobs) the new Kindle is so svelte and understated that you wonder whether Amazon hired Apple's Jony Ive for a brief consultancy. Weighing in at 8.7 ounces—barely half the weight of the one-pound paperback version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo —it's less than a third of an inch thick, cutting an even tinier profile than an iPhone 4. The color is now graphite, which supposedly heightens the text contrast. (The 3G connected higher-end version can still be ordered in white.) No matter what the color of the plastic, the denser e-ink on the new Kindle is going to make a lot of previous Kindle owners jealous. Amazon says it's a 50 percent boost in contrast; stats aside, the clarity of text makes what was a good reading device even better, largely mitigating the grayish background of the screen display. The new Kindle also offers more flexibility in font size, spacing and words per line. The other reading improvement that Amazon boasts about—a 20 percent reduction in the brief blackout that occurs when you turn the virtual page of an e-book—is less significant. After hours of Kindle use, I have come to hardly notice that blackout anyway (though many novices are bugged by it). The one feature I do miss—and actually exists on the iPad Kindle app—is a slider that allows you quickly "thumb" through the pages of text to an approximate area you want to find. (When it comes to reading publications with more complicated layouts, like newspapers or magazines, though, touch-screen, backlit tablet computers still have the edge.) Speaking of navigation, each generation of Kindle has discarded the previous interface hardware for selecting and getting around your reading material. This Kindle discards the stubby joystick for a "five way" display that's a select button surrounded by directional keys to help with cursor movements. Also, the "menu" and "home" buttons have been moved from the side panels to the keyboard, leaving just slim page-forward and page-back buttons on both sides of the unit. Big win. For the first time, you can grab a Kindle without worrying about accidentally pressing a button that loses your place. Unfortunately, Amazon still hasn't gotten it exactly right—the "up" and "down" movements on the 5-way button are too close to the "menu" and "back" buttons and if you're not careful, you can easily hit them by mistake. Maybe the fourth generation will be the charm. Since I only had my new Kindle for less than a week, I couldn't test Amazon's claim that the battery would last ten days with the 3G on, and a month with the radio shut off. (The low-end version claims 3 weeks with the Wi-Fi on.) But even if the specs come close, that seems like a nice boost to those who want to travel without worrying about keeping their charger close. There's twice as much on board storage from the previous gen Kindle, enough for 3500 books. And the basic Kindle finally has the native PDF support of its bigger brother, the Kindle DX. Should you get the low-end Wi-Fi version for $139 or the one with free 3G mobile connectivity for fifty bucks more? I didn't get a chance to test the low-end Kindle, but after using the Wi-Fi on the deluxe version, I found it simple to access and use my password-protected network. The Amazon store (and other web pages) loaded a little more nimbly via Wi-Fi and it seemed to me that books downloaded more quickly, too. Basically, unless you plan to use your Kindle in a lot of situations where you dont have Wi-Fi access, or are traveling internationally (Kindle's AT&T 3G broadband works overseas for free), I think that the lower-end version would be fine. Even though Amazon has sped up its web browser (buried under the "experimental" menu option) it's still monochromatic, sluggish, and awkward compared to a computer, iPad, or even your smart phone. Amazon is also offering a new case for the Kindle with a built-in book light that draws power from the device itself. Snaking above the page, the light does a decent job, but the case adds considerably to the bulk to the Kindle, which is really nice to use in its naked form. At $60, the case is expensive in comparison to the gadget. If Kindle prices keep going down, and the price of a cover keeps inching up, will users soon pay more to shield the Kindle than they do to buy it? Even though it's not part of the new Kindle launch, I should mention a feature that Amazon rolled out in the last operating system upgrade. You may now come across passages in a downloaded book that have been highlighted by other users. (You have the option of turning it off.) You can also access a list of such "meaningful passages" through a menu item. Though this seems spooky the first time you see it, I think it's a hint of how reading itself may be creeping towards a social experience. The subtle implementation of this feature shows Amazon's awareness that it is at the forefront of a movement that may have powerful and unexpected consequences on the centuries-old practice of reading. But the company's primary mission with Kindle is to establish it as something readers will want to carry around with them, even in the emerging age of tablet computers. The third generation Kindle, with its aggressive pricing and its improved design and features, does that job nicely. WIRED Amazon keeps pace with a more competitive e-reading marketplace with a smaller device, more readable text, yet and another improved hardware interface. $139 price for Wi-Fi version will open the door for multi-Kindle families. Battery life is long enough for space shuttle missions. TIRED Still the same DRM, no touch-screen navigation, the book-light case is too costly. Only those with tiniest fingers will avoid hitting the "back" button when moving the cursor down. Interface for newspaper and magazines still clunky.
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You’re Probably Getting Only Half of Your "Up To" Broadband Speed [News]

From the files of the Sad but Totally Expected Dept.: The FCC is out with a new report ( direct PDF link ) that suggests that the average consumer gets a good deal less bandwidth than nearly every broadband provider advertises as their "up to" speed—as in , "Get up to 10 Mbps downloads!" (You can see the average percentages for each broadband speed tier above). This initial study used mass network data, but the agency is now installing boxes in homes to get a better look at what consumers really get, versus what's advertised. Is your own connection a far cry from your advertised speed? What kind of variation do you see in network speeds throughout the day? [ Ars Technica ] More
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You’re Probably Getting Only Half of Your "Up To" Broadband Speed [News]

From the files of the Sad but Totally Expected Dept.: The FCC is out with a new report ( direct PDF link ) that suggests that the average consumer gets a good deal less bandwidth than nearly every broadband provider advertises as their "up to" speed—as in , "Get up to 10 Mbps downloads!" (You can see the average percentages for each broadband speed tier above). This initial study used mass network data, but the agency is now installing boxes in homes to get a better look at what consumers really get, versus what's advertised. Is your own connection a far cry from your advertised speed? What kind of variation do you see in network speeds throughout the day? [ Ars Technica ] More
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GooReader Brings Google Books to Your Windows Desktop [Downloads]

Windows: GooReader is a desktop application for Google Books that allows you to search, read, and even download the books and magazines you find. More
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iOS 4.0.2 Update Kills JailbreakMe and PDF Exploits [Updates]

Apple's released updates for iPhones, iPod touch models, and iPads that closes a nasty PDF-based exploit. That same exploit is what made one-click jailbreaking possible, of course, so upgrade if you'd like a sanctioned, secure, warranty-stable model, or hold off for future work-arounds. More
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Apple Releases iOS 4.0.2 for iPhone, Patching PDF Exploit [Ios]

Apple's pushing out iOS 4.0.2 for iPhones and iPod Touches and iOS 3.2.2 for iPads, an update that patches the previous versions' PDF exploit and wipes out your unlock and nice new jailbreak . More
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Worldlabel’s Moving Kit Organizes Your Boxes for Confusion-Free Moving [Moving]

If the black-Sharpie-on-a-box doesn't help you easily differentiate between boxes when you're moving, Worldlabel's free PDF will save you time and energy by letting you just stick on your custom labels, whether for different rooms, fragile items, or "this side up" boxes. More
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iPhone PDF flaw not linked to Adobe, says software maker

The iPhone PDF vulnerability...
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