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the lesson from this seems to be that, given the mac's proportionally smaller user base, mac users seem to often get the short end of the stick when it comes to cross-platform drivers &c. the makers of vuescan and macbibble can probably attest to this. bibble, as i recall, was originally inspired by nikon's hideously buggy/crash-prone driver software for their D1, which set a few bars in terms of digital camera hardware but was well-nigh unuseable by mac users because of the software (which you had to buy separately!). we're seeing the same thing these days with quark, albeit in stronger language.

granted, this is pretty much the way it's going to be as long as mac users make up 5-10% (depending on who you ask) of the desktop computer using population, but it's still a drag.

This looks like good business because with many scanners, Open Source software (SANE) does not work, and scanner manufacturers provide no Linux support. Either you don't scan or you don't use Linux or you use this closed-source program.

Your software should be unique, irreplaceable and of a very good quality. It should also occupy a specific niche unreacheable for large corporations.

Example: Vuescan

You may want to look into vuescan, third-party driver for a huge variety of scanners. Yes, it costs something like $40, which is admittedly about the price of a cheap new scanner. But that sounds better to me than rebooting.

I don't like the digital camera idea personally, unless you get a good small tripod and a macro lens, and have some good photography experience.

For a decent semi-portable scanner I'd say one of the canoscan N series. They use an array of LED's instead of an incandescent bulb and are USB powered. They're very thin and light, and could be put in a briefcase or backpack/laptop bag. I've even dropped mine a few times (with the lock on fortunately), and it's still ticking away just fine.

The higher end N series scanners from Canon have OSX drivers direct from Canon, the lower end ones will be supported eventually, but for now you can use VueScan.

Older Canon scanners are supported in OS X with VueScan from Hamrick software. Im scanning away with my FB630U which isn't natively supported on OS X by Canon.

VueScan from Hamrick software supports this. There is a Linux, Windows and Mac (9 & 10) version available. I have been using this with my film scanner for quite a while. Work great. Not free, but not expensive either and updates come out very frequently, adding support for new scanners and new features.

From the manual:

Scan multiple photos, slides, film strips at once on a flatbed

VueScan provides a feature that allows you to scan multiple photos, slides or film strips in a single pass of your scanner. Lay the prints or slides on the scanner bed in a grid, edge to edge, then use the "Device|X/Y images" and "Device|X/Y spacing" options. From a single scan, VueScan will produce multiple files, all cropped and color balanced automatically.

I know I've pimped it here before, but I don't mind doing it again. VueScan is the best scanning software for Linux, Mac OS, and Windows. It supports all Epson USB, SCSI, and IEEE-1394 flatbed scanners, and a SCSI film scanner. The program is shareware, and registration costs $40.

Forty bucks, but it works with every scanner I've ever seen.

Aqua has indeed improved. Buttons, in particular, are more... subdued? It looks like they're trying to make things more functional and less flashy.

The arrow pointer looked weird at first, particularly when over a white background, but I've gotten used to it, and it doesn't bug me anymore. Over a darker background it's perfect.

I also have a UMAX scanner, and it may never be supported natively. I did find VueScan which also works on Linux, but I'm not really thrilled with the UI - guess I'll have to play with it some more.

I never really used Sherlock for anything besides searching for files. Thank god they've put that functionality back where it's supposed to be. I may use Sherlock now, but I'm not forced to launch it if all I want is a quick search for a file.

I recently discovered LiteSwitch X, and I miss it. You'd think Apple could make a decent task switcher. Under OS9 I was using the Microsoft Office Manager, which was just about perfect.

"The least painful it's ever been" sums it up quite nicely. It's only getting better, and eventually won't be painful at all. That hope keeps me going. :-)

Why use OSX? First, the OS doesn't crash as often. Second, it's UNIX. I love being able to ssh to my Linux box from work, send a WOL packet to my Mac to wake it from sleep, ssh into it, locate a file, and use scp to send it where I need it.

Now if I can just get ghostscript to work, I'll be able to print from Linux to the printer on my Mac. I'm really impressed with cups.

VueScan is a really great scanning package for Linux GTK, MacOS, or Win32. Cheap, too.

Their site: http://www.hamrick.com/vsm.html

If you're unsure, read the 662 user comments at VersionTracker before installing.