TITAM - Technical issues that affected me

Update 2016-08-27:  Scanner is still going strong.  I have had zero issues with it aside from it losing USB communications every so often, which requires it to be unplugged to fix it.  I dive under my desk about once a month to do this.  Keep this in mind and if you see this issue, report it immediately to HP to try and get it fixed.  As a workaround, I plan to eventually get another Kankun Smart Plug to allow me to reset it   remotely.  But I'm lazy and haven't bothered yet. ---------------------------- I'm just coming off a very disappointing experience with two Canon imageFormula DR-F120 scanners, so bear that in mind, as it's bound to color my opinion. Also, I didn't read the manual until after I'd figured it all out.  More fun that way.... ;-)  No, actually, it was more a test of how intuitive it all is. If the Canon is a butler, the HP is a draft horse.  It's big, slightly imposing, somewhat handsome but not pret...

You can use this adapter from DealExtreme to plug in an ordinary PS/2 keyboard and mouse combination into the Minix.  Works fine and will probably also work for other similar Android boxen as well. Why?  Well, lets you use the Minix with a KVM, doesn't it?

[Edit 2016-08-27]:  Ended up settling on an HP Scanjet Enterprise Flow 7500.  First impressions here . [Edit 2015-04-24]:  Both DR-F120 units I tried had problems with tearing up pages, so both have been returned.  See https://youtu.be/nCEgXA_f7og and read the bottom of this post for details. I am leaving this review up because I really wanted to like the unit.  I probably would have been very happy with it, if it had not tried to eat my documents.  If I'd wanted a paper shredder, I'd have gotten a proper one. Assuming Canon fixes this in the future, however, this information might still be useful to somebody, at some time. ------------------------------------------------------------ Seems few people have bought one of these yet. I'll try to relate a few things you may not get from the existing photos or reviews. Be aware that I had a Fujitsu fi-4220c for many, many years, so many of my impressions will be from that baseline. Capsule review:...

Short answer:  It can't be done.  Do yourself a favor, don't waste your time. Long answer:  There is no Windows 7 driver for this scanner, and Fujitsu will never make one.  The 32-bit Windows Vista driver might or might not work for Win 7, but it has zero chance of working on Win7 64-bit, so don't try. You can run the scanner in "Windows XP mode".  Reports are that this is kludgy at best.  I did not try. If you search, you will find VueScan.  The software appears to be legit but does not include any device drivers, so it will not solve your issue.  I got suckered into trying the demo, and wasting yet MORE of my time. But it makes sense.  Q:  How does any company write 1000+ device drivers for hardware they didn't make?  A: They don't.  Without a driver, programs like VueScan are dead ducks, no matter what promises they make on their dodgy and overenthusiastic web site. I wouldn't be in this mess if my old HP Pavilion...

I was donated an older WinXP desktop by my dad, but it had multiple levels of password protection. First, the Optiplex BIOS had the password set.  After some mucking about, I discovered that the password reset jumper needed to be in "reset" position when booting the machine.  It actually says "Password disabled" when you've done it right.  Just moving the jumper with the machine off and/or unplugged doesn't do anything. The BIOS user /boot password was also set, but didn't appear to affect anything. The kicker was the Windows XP logins.  My dad tried over a dozen user/password combinations, but none worked.  I had read about a method to reset XP passwords using the original installation CD-ROM and product key.  It was a Dell, so it had the product key sticker on the case.  But it looked like a time-consuming and cumbersome option.  There are also commercial options between $20 and $50, but there were enough solutions out there that I fig...

Symptoms:  You try to shut down Windows 7, and it pulls up the black-background "programs need to close" screen.  You try to press either "Force restart" or "Cancel", but you can't - neither your keyboard nor your mouse will actually let you click either button. Fix:  Try hitting Ctrl-Alt-Del to interrupt Windows and get to the logoff / shutdown screen.  The mouse and keyboard should be working then, in which case you can return to the previous screen, click "Cancel" and shut down the offending program properly.  Alternatively, you may be able to force a restart from the new screen.