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OneNote 2007 is my new god.

No, not really, but it turns out to have one really nice feature that I wasn’t aware of. If you import an image into OneNote, it will automatically OCR any text within it and make it searchable. It will even highlight the portion of the image where the search text appears.

As it turns out, this is an extremely useful feature for me. I’ve been wanting to take a bunch of my somewhat important paperwork—stuff that might be nice to have around for reference, but isn’t necessarily something I need to have hard copies of—and get it scanned in so I can destroy the hard copy. This is mainly because I’m sick of how much space that paper starts taking up.

I had been looking into doing this on my MacBook—DEVONthink Office Pro is very similar to OneNote—but my Canon Lide60 scanner doesn’t seem to want to play nice with Leopard. Canon does provide Vista drivers that work fine, however, so I’ve been using that. I know some people really like the Fujitsu ScanSnap scanners for this particular application—and they would be easier since they’ve got an automatic document feeder—but I’ve heard some complaints about their reliability. They also don’t appear to be TWAIN or Windows Imaging compatible, which is a serious downside. Plus, I just can’t see spending $400+ on a scanner for that; once I’ve cleared the backlog, a simple flatbed scanner like the Lide 60 should be more than enough.

For the sake of security, I plan to store the OneNote database files in a TrueCrypt container, once I do a little research on how OneNote manages its databases. I also intend to back these files up regularly and probably put copies on CD/DVD (or a thumbdrive) into a safe-deposit box every couple of months.
In other news, after debating the idea for a couple years, I’m finally getting a new hearing aid. I’m currently using a Phonak SuperFront analog behind-the-ear model that was manufactured 15 years ago and has been rebuilt a couple of times. It’s apparently pretty unusual to keep using the same hearing aid for so long. It’s worked well for me, but it’s been through the wars and is definitely due for a replacement. One interesting note—it appears that Phonak still makes that model; when I Googled for a link to it, I found that page and it is the exact model that I have with an identical model number (PP-C-L-4). I’m a little surprised they’re still manufacturing them.

At any rate, I’ve decided it’s time to take advantage of some of the technological advancements of the past 15 years, so I’m getting a Siemens Cielo 2 SP digital model. It’s supposed to be able to filter background noise and wind noise, two features that I think will be absolutely worth it if they work well. I’m hoping it will provide a bit more clarity than my current one has, too. I’m planning on going swing dancing the evening I get it, so it should be subjected to a pretty immediate stress-test. I’m kind of excited to get this, and very curious as to how well it’ll work. :)

One thing that is kind of annoying is that they’re not cheap, and my insurance doesn’t cover them. I kind of wish that I could at least purchase them through the insurance company to take advantage of their bulk-purchasing power, but I guess we can’t have that since it might actually, you know, make sense. Oh well. ;)

That’s all I’ve got for now.

Posted in Personal, Technology. Tagged with , , , , , , , .

One Response

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  1. Stan said

    I was worried that my LiDE 60 would stop working in Leopard, but I found the Canon drivers posted here:

    http://www.usa.canon.com/consumer/controller?act=ModelInfoAct&tabact=DownloadDetailTabAct&fcategoryid=351&modelid=11446

    seem to work. Specifically, I installed the lide60osx11120en.dmg and the cstbosx4933ej4.dmg files. The CanoScan Toolbox at least works and generates PDFs with the OCR searchable text that work in Preview, Spotlight, Yep, etc. (And the Toolbox finally includes Intel binaries, which is good!)

    So far the main glitch is that if I try to initiate the scan using the buttons on the front of the scanner, the Toolbox opens and pops up a warning saying “Failed to open a driver.” However, if I initiate the scan from my computer by clicking on buttons in the Toolbox, everything runs fine. And, after my first scan is complete, the scanner hardware buttons all work correctly, without the driver warning box. It is a minor irritation to have to use the software to initiate the first scan after plugging in the scanner, but not critical.