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Cost Effective Scan-to-FTP Products?
An anonymous reader asks: "The law firm I work for uses a document routing system that picks up TIFFs or PDFs in server directory and processes them. We're using digital copiers with scan-to-FTP functionality to get them to the server's input directory. So, we need a cheap, easy to use unit for doing scan-to-FTP (or SMB). Copiers are just too expensive to sprinkle around a floor and PC-scanner solutions are just too big, complicated and time intensive for the users. I have found a couple possibilities doing web searches, but I'm still wondering what other Slashdot readers are using for this."
I own a Canon LIDE-50 scanner (2 years old, runs from USB power, fast and precise). It was bundled with a small utility and has 4 buttons on its front side.
I can assign realy basic actions to each button with the utility:
For your problem, you can:
Your workflow becomes:
AWx
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There's no reason to buy something off-the-shelf for this -- SANE's scanadf (with one of the drivers which can detect the scanner's start button press -- I just hacked up a solution for this with a slightly modified version of SANE's Fujitsu drivers and a less slightly modified version of the buttonpress detection tool out of SANE's "experimental" CVS module yesterday), in conjunction with a script for doing the upload, will do the trick. (Alternately, you could use NFS, SMBFS, DAVFS, etc. in place of FTP and just do a simple filesystem mount; I'd consider that more straightforward). I typically call scanadf with a filename based on the current timestamp -- so push the button and all the papers in your hopper come out as files named on the date/time the scan was started and the page# (based on ordering within the ADF). This means you need to have reasonable defaults for your scanning settings if you're going to do the single-button-press thing -- but for my purposes, 300DPI black-and-white works for just 'bout everything.
As an aside: One of my personal projects is building an setup that uses SANE, HylaFAX+iaxphone+asterisk and CUPS to scan items to a network drive (either shared space or, if they log in, password-protected space; this latter functionality is important for HR and other folks handling confidential documents); scan items to an outgoing fax; allow folks to print incoming faxes queued in their name and all that other nifty jazz. Don't know when I'll actually have something ready for release, though -- might be a bit, particularly as taking something I threw together as a once-off (which this will be, at first) and packaging it up for redistribution and reuse takes time.
they're called 'folders'. you put 'paper' in them.
they can be 'boxed' or put in 'filing cabinets'.
Regarding your "blog:"
It's called a 'diary.' You get a 'pen,' you write in 'ink' in it. It can be secured with a tiny metal 'key,' or shared with your 'friends.' You can even clutch it to your 'breast' after you write your deepest, most personal 'thoughts' in it.
He wants a scanner that you press a button and it scans and then send the scanned image to a preconfigured FTP/SMB address... so he can digitalize a lot of stuff in parallel and without using dedicated scanner/pc pairs.
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
You need something to scan documents automatically? I think they're called "interns"...
Why don't you look into the possibility of getting some HP LaserJet 4345MFP printers? If your only going to be doing scanning, you can get the HP 9200C digital sender. You can link it with the DSS 4 software and make it do anything you want. Don't know if it's out of your price range, but I'm sure you could get it to do whatever you wanted to do. Yes, I do work with these devices on a daily basis. Not neccessarly with scan to FTP, but I know that the function is there.
Get a bunch of old surplus laptops - any P300 or higher would be fine. Turn off hibernation on the laptops so they stay on when closed. Get some flatbed scanners, place them on top of the laptops.
With any number of software packages, or some simple shell scripting in Linux, automate the scanning so that when they put in a document and press the 'Scan' button, it will do whatever you want. So, just make it scan into a format and copy it to the FTP server.
It shouldn't cost you more than $500 for every Laptop / Flatbed station you need.
I was going to mention WSH in response to grandparent as well, but since you got there first, I'll play devil's advocate.
/just as powerful/ as shell scripts is incorrect, I think.
WSH is actually more limited than traditional Unix shell scripts because the building blocks of WSH are ActiveX objects, whereas shell scripts are built from text filters. Text filters are generally much easier to write and debug than ActiveX objects (because they're simpler). Plus, it's fairly easy to use any shell scripts as a text filter for another shell script, whereas each WSH script is self-contained (ie, it cannot be used to build more complex WSH scripts) without going through a great deal of extra trouble.
So in short, yes WSH provides lots of functionality -- and it certainly provides the functionality required for the problem at hand. But to say that it's
It's always a long day... 86400 doesn't fit into a short.
But your text indicates that you already have all of these components in place, so why are you looking for another solution? Is it just the cost?
Yes he does, many copiers do this today (by copier I mean the large classic xerox sytle not the small 4 in 1 thingies), you simply plug in a network cable setup the ftp information and press scan.
He obviously wants several of these stations, but doesn't see the need in purchasing $10K+ copiers, instead wants to know if any small 4 in 1 or flatbed scanner can do this job.
They cost around $900 each, but the fi-5120C2 my company recommends to our customers are very nice scanners -- auto document feed (just throw stuff in the hopper), full-duplex full-color scanning at up to 25 pages per minute. (Mind you, you need a faster connection than USB1 for that full speed if you're going to be doing more than 200DPI black-and-white images. They support both USB2 and SCSI, but we've only tested USB2 -- but even with that you need to cut down the quality if you need the full 25 pages per minute).