OCR finally online
I had written about my frustration with ScanSoft's eStore DigitalRiver
a few days ago here.
The following day, instead of going to an internet café to download the code, I went to a local office supply store and bought a box version of it for cheaper than it was being sold for on the web.
My concern then was that if DigitalRiver was so flaky, what would it be like to get a refund. To my joy this morning, I found that they are very good about refunds. They fired off an email to me, I clicked a box and sent it back. So far, so good. I'll be checking online Monday to see if this actually shows up in my account.
It also turned out that my 6-year old scanner was not compatible with the software. It could see it and I tried several versions of the drivers but it would not work. I wound up getting a new scanner today and things are wonderful. ScanSoft (since renamed Nuance) OmniPage is excellent software. I had played with earlier versions of OCR software and found some serious issues -- OmniPage is a definite cut above the rest and well worth it if you are dealing with documents.
An interesting item -- I was looking at some low-end scanners as my old scanner works great with Photoshop. Saw some for around $150 or so that looked interesting. Saw a Xerox unit for $350 that had an Automatic Document Feeder (ADF) and that caught my eye until I looked at the all-in-one machines a bit further down the aisle. I settled on an HP 7210 which also has an ADF (and a much better designed unit then the one on the Tek scanner) plus, it has FAX, Ethernet, memory card readers and a printer. The cost was the same so what's not to love.
Tektronix? Wake up here! The market is knocking at your door and you are sound asleep...
And yes, still doing taxes -- have a personal joint checking account, a partnership for the Farm and an L.L.C. Corporation for the cider business. We leave on our California trip Monday and have a lot to do (I let the books slide a bit...)
Posted by DaveH at March 10, 2006 8:57 PM