Getting  Along With Your Computer Column Archive

Scan Your Slides and Check Your Anti-virus

By Cate Eales
Appeared May 15, 2008 on castanet.net

What's the best way to scan old slides and store the results? There are plenty of opinions! Read them here. Also, check the status of your anti-virus software.


Digitize old slides
A recent column asked for your help. A reader has hundreds of slides, and wants to know the best way to digitize and store them. Several people suggested outsourcing the project, but at an average cost of over $1.00 per slide, that may not be the best way to go for hundreds of slides!

Thank you everyone who suggesting how to scan them yourself:

For a small number of slides, I've used an Epson 2480 which scans two at a time. there is a larger model which scans fours at a time. - Rick

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My Canon Canoscan LIDE 600F flatbed scanner ( $120.) comes with an attachment for scanning slides and film strips. Positive or negative. -Ray

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I had 2700 slides in slide carousels in order of years. I bought an HP scanner that had the slide tray in the lid. There were many kinds but most of them you had to put the slide part onto the glass. I didn't want parts laying around so I bought the one that is permanent in the lid. I scanned each slide in individually. When I had one hundred scanned then I went and numbered then 1-100 and cropped and lightened etc. - Betty

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HP Scanjet G4050 does up to 16 slides at a time. You do have to take the time to load the 16 to the scanner then unload and reload. It also does strips of negatives of pics; is great with scanning picture prints and a great color/BW "photo copier"...I found the Scanjet G4050 at Staples about a year ago for under $200. It did need some downloads from HP for Vista compatibility. -Monty

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An incredibly interesting alternative to using a scanner is:

I have an SLR camera that I made a slide holder for and with a telephoto lens and macro attachment I took photos of my old slides. It is not perfect but does a reasonable job. I saved them into folders sorted by the year on the slide. -Bill
 

To store the images, get the biggest external hard drive you can afford, connect it up to a USB port, and save the digitized slides there. Hard drives will be around for years to come. DVD's and CD's will not.

A good, free basic photo editor is Picasa.  Photoshop Elements is more powerful, but not free. I let Picasa organize my images. I am also impressed with Adobe Photoshop Elements' organizer function, but that is not a free program. Vista has a really powerful and beautiful photo album built in. Even the built in "My Pictures" folder in Windows XP is better than a shoe box full of slides!


AVG Free Anti-Virus needs your attention
AVG Free 7.5 Anti Virus is a great, free product. I have used it, recommended it in this column, and installed it for my clients for several years. Sadly, it is fast approaching the end of it's life. Grisoft, the maker of AVG, will retire 7.5 and stop issuing updates for it at the end of this month. They recommend their updated product, AVG Free 8.0.

AVG Free 8.0 also includes some anti-spyware capabilities, a Link Scanner, and a Safe Search component. For the average user, this is either good news or at least not bad news. For power users, this can be infuriating. There are ways to disable those components. And, if you want to install the program without the Link Scanner component, check the instructions and comments in this article.

AVG 8.0 is available here. If you want to try another product, AVIRA Personal Free comes highly recommended. That is available here. Another free product which is often recommended is Avast!, available here.

Whatever you do, do something! Whatever you install, be sure to uninstall your AVG 7.5 before you install a new anti-virus product!


Thank you so much to everyone who emailed suggestions on scanning slides! And of course thanks to everyone who emailed with questions on other topics, too. You can reach me at cate@rlis.com if you have anything to ask or tell about your computer. Don't forget, you can browse the column archives at any time. Point your browser here to go there.  If you'd like to subscribe to this column by email, please visit this link.  It's easy, and free. If you'd prefer the RSS Feed, click here.

Links
What's In Cate's In Box? http://rlis.com/columns/column145.htm
Taming AVG Free Version 8 http://grandstreamdreams.blogspot.com/2008/04/taming-avg-free-version-8.html
Picasa http://picasa.google.com/
Adobe Photoshop Elements http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshopelwin/
Download AVG Free 8.0 http://free.grisoft.com/ww.download?prd=afe
Download AVIRA Personal Free http://www.free-av.com/en/products/1/avira_antivir_personal__free_antivirus.html
Download Avast! Free http://www.avast.com/eng/avast_4_home.html
Getting Along With Your Computer Column Archives http://rlis.com/column.htm
Get Cate's column by email http://www.feedblitz.com/f/f.fbz?Sub=20618
RSS Feed: http://rlis.com/rlis.xml

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Cate Eales has been helping people make online computing safe, accessible and fun for over 20 years. She lives in Kelowna with her husband, Eric, and her dog, Sandy. Cate is a partner in Real Life Internet Solutions, helping individuals and small businesses with virus, spyware and malware eradication; personal computer training and management; digital image management; music transfer; and website design, hosting and management. Email Cate at cate@rlis.com with your comments, suggestions, or questions. To browse the column archives, visit the Real Life Internet Solutions website at www.rlis.com.

© Cate Eales 2008 – All Rights Reserved
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