Sharing a network scanner

This tip will explain how to share a scanner among computers in a network. The scanner is connected to a Linux-based server, and is shared between all computers in the local network (both Windows- and Linux-based computers).

Server
I've used Ubuntu 9.10 as server-OS. This auto-detects my Epson scanner. All that is necessary is to make it available to all users:

# sudo nano -w /lib/udev/rules.d/50-udev-default.rules

Locate the usb subsystem, and change the mode to "0666". Note that this allows full access to all USB-devices for all users on your system. There are other ways to fix the permissions for the scanner, but this is out of scope.

SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ENV{DEVTYPE}=="usb_device", MODE="0666"

Now the scanner must be made available on the network. Open the file /etc/sane.d/saned.conf:

# sudo nano -w /etc/sane.d/saned.conf

Add the IP-address or the subnet-address of the computer(s) that shall be able to access the scanner. In my case the following line is added to allow all computers with IP-address 10.x.x.x access:

10.0.0.1/8

In addition, saned (the Sane daemon) shoul be started automatically. To ensure this, edit /etc/inetd.conf:

# sudo nano -w /etc/inetd.conf

Add the following line to the file:

sane-port stream tcp nowait saned.saned /usr/sbin/saned saned

Now start the scanner interface:

# sudo invoke-rc.d saned start

The server-side should be ready now. For additional info, see http://www.linux.com/archive/feed/57798.


Client
A Windows client can be downloaded here: http://sanetwain.ozuzo.net/#download

Unzip the download to c:\sanetwain (other locations should also work), and then double-click the ScanImage  application. A setup dialog appears:

Add the IP-address of your scanner-server in the field Hostname, and you should be ready to scan.

To scan from a Linux-based client, just add the IP-addres of the scanner-server to /etc/sane.d/net.conf:

10.0.1.41

Start Xsane, and it should locate the network scanner.

Add copyright notice to Picasaweb albums

This tip works with Picasa 3. Open the Picasa application, and go to the menu option "Tools | Options...". Go to the "Web Albums" tab, then check "Add a watermark for all photo uploads" and add text to the textfield below.

Now you're ready to go. Just upload the pictures to PicasaWeb using Picasa, and Picasa will add the watermark to all pictures. See example below.

Create audiobooks for iPod

This tip will enable you to create one-file audiobooks for your iPod. The audiobooks are categorized as audiobooks in Itunes and on your iPod, and in addition it lets you create chapters based on the original files and/or based on time intervals. On your iPod it is possible to skip between the chapters.
This tip is for Windows only.

You need three software packages:

• The iPod ABC (iPod Audio Book Converter)
  http://www.sjhaley.com/ipodabc/Ipod%20ABC.msi
• Nero AAC Encoder
  http://www.nero.com/eng/downloads-nerodigital-nero-aac-codec.php
• Slideshow assembler
  http://jrlearnsmedia.com/blog/articles/ssa-downloads.aspx
  

Run the setup for iPod ABC and Slideshow assembler. The open the zip-file containing the Nero AAC Codec, and extract the encoder files into the directory where iPod ABC was installed. Do not extract them to sub-directories as this will prevent iPod ABC to automatically discover the encoders.

Start the iPod ABC, and verify that Nero conversion is enabled (middle, rightmost part of the screenshot).

Now you may add the files that comprises the audiobook, choose how you want the chapters to be defined, and specify an output file. Pressing the run-button creates a m4b file (AAC audio book) that you should import in iTunes and then sync to your iPod.

Note that you can download free audiobooks on http://booksshouldbefree.com/