Windows – Jane Talks Tech!

Personal Computing tip: Scanning Documents with Adobe Acrobat Pro 8

At home, I possess an ADF-enabled printer (ADF stands for “automated document feeder“), the HP OfficeJet J6480 which lets me scan documents without resorting to manually feeding all pages of the document by hand. Using HP’s software, scanning multipage documents is painless. However, if you still own a printer without this ADF-feature like a certain HP PSC 750 printer, I feel slightly sorry for you (unless you have a dedicated workhorse scanner). This ancient puppy has a flatbed which means I can’t leave the computer until I have manually scanned all the pages into the computer. The purpose of this post is to note what I have done to help ease the frustration of keeping multipage documents in 1 scanned (.pdf) file and walk you through the steps & possible pitfalls.

Previously, I would simply scan each page of my document via the built-in Windows 7 “Fax and Scan” utility. Sidenote: Access Windows fax and scan by hitting the “Windows” button and typing “scan”. You should see this image:

This method saves scanned items as .jpg files. If I scanned 10 pages, I would end up with 10 .jpg files. My next step towards consolidating all 10 jpg files would be to combine them into 1 .pdf document using Adobe Acrobat Pro version 8 (I refuse to “upgrade”). The entire scanning and converting process used to take over 5 minutes, but I figured out an easier way to streamline the process. Here’s my new method:

Scanning Multipage Documents with Adobe Acrobat Pro 8 (on Windows 7)

Step One: Fire Up Adobe Acrobat Pro (version 8): Click on the “Create PDF” button as shown in the image below. The option you want is “from Scanner” so click on that.
Step Two: Select Your Scanning Device Depending on your printer, all you may need to do is: “Select your scanning device” as shown in this image below. If you haven’t installed your printer yet, follow the instructions on your users’ manual to get that important step squared away.
Step Three: Changing Scanning Settings: With Adobe Acrobat 8’s document creation via scanner feature, you have the option of (depending on your printer’s capabilities):
- Choosing how the documents get scanned i.e. 1-side or both sides.
- Color mode i.e. black/white, grayscale or in color.
- Scanning resolution. A common DPI for print documents is 300DPI. Any higher makes the scanning process longer and in my case, makes the printer more likely to wig out and fail halfway. 600DPI is as high as I’ve dared to go.
In truth, there are WAY more options than you need to concern yourself with if you want a simple foolproof method of scanning a paper document to a portable document format (PDF, get it? :P).
Step Four: Start Scanning: Once you have completed Step Three, press the “Scan” button and you will be prompted to write in a name for the .pdf file you are about to create.

Possible Problems.

There’s something about HP printers …: HP printers are ‘well’ supported on Windows 7 … if you agree with HP’s need for you to install their suite of products on your computer just to get the printing and scanning functions working properly. Not to be misleading, my (discontinued) HP OfficeJet J6480 will work even when treated as a plug-and-play device; The operating system (Windows 7) found drivers for it when I connected via USB, etc, but I since found that accessing the more advanced features of my printer required fiddling so I caved in and downloaded the 115.77 megabyte basic printer driver installation program from HP’s website. The full featured driver for my printer weighs in at 246.43 megabytes.

All of this to say: you might need to download either the basic printer driver from HP’s website or if you don’t care about installing yet another piece of bloatware, go ahead and download the full featured driver. In fact, if you’re using HP products, please be intimately familiar with this website: http://hp.com/go/support and if possible, have a fridge sticker with your HP product’s serial or product number. On this website, you will find software/firmware updates that even the HP Update or HP Support Assistant won’t pick up on.
Printer Blues:With the HP PSC 750, I ran into a problem where the printer/scanner would get hung up and flash a message about a “scanner failure”. What happened was either the printer or Adobe Acrobat 8 would get stuck after I completed Step Four even so using the built-in Windows Fax and Scan option worked so I knew the printer/scanner *was* working. I was able to resolve the issue by altering the scanner options up at Step One.
By default, Adobe Acrobat *hides* the native scanning interface that you get with Windows Fax and Scan tool. By changing the setting in the image to “Show Scanner’s Native Interface”, I was able to get my printer/scanner and Adobe working for the greater good again. 😛

If you found this too long to read, here’s your takeaway: Invest in a printer that had an automated document feeder with double-sided printing capability. With the right software, and yes, this might mean downloading your manufacturer’s bloatware, you may never need to manually change pages for scanning again.

Using Facebook? Get BitDefender Safego (beta)

I’m a longtime (over 3 years) user of Facebook and have become hardened to their ever changing designs and privacy policies. I know to be on my toes and continuously scrutinize my privacy settings to have as much control as I want over my data. As I watch the more people joining Facebook, I wonder just how careful they will be with giving their data to applications, rogue or otherwise. Add the relative unsavvy-ness of the older generation and you have a feast of data for bad guys to dine on.

That said, I was pinged several weeks ago about a Facebook app by BitDefender called “BitDefender Safego” and at the time, I wasn’t sure I was their intended target because I largely avoid attempts at social engineering me into clicking malicious links or enabling malicious apps to have access to my data or my friends’. I finally activated the BitDefender Safego app and this is a summary of the process:

Activating the Safego app means going to this link: http://apps.facebook.com/bd-safego/
When installing the app, you will be asked to grant the app a bunch of permissions. Only 2 of those permissions are required for the BitDefender Safego app to function and they are to:
- Allow the Safego app to send you email
- Allow the Safego app to access your Facebook basic information like name, profile picture, gender, networks, user ID, list of friends and other info you’ve shared with everyone.
You’ll probably be asked to share your latest app find with friends, but I always like to keep my ‘noise’ level down.
After activating the BitDefender Safego app, you’ll be presented with a shiny Dashboard where the Safego app presents an overview of issues that may require your attention, notices of infection on your wall or inbox. This is what it looks like:

If you’re lucky, your dashboard will remain squeaky clean as mine was for several weeks until when a hapless Facebook acquaintance posted some spam-driven links to my wall. However, I didn’t get to see those malicious links because BitDefender Safego ‘quarantined’ the link from posting to my wall. This was GREAT because it’s one less task I have to do especially when said acquaintance continuously spams your wall.

However, what was NOT so great was the implication of turning ON the “Publish to Wall” setting in the Safego dashboard. This means that with every detection of a spam link or infected content, you will get a notice posted to your Facebook wall by the BitDefender Safego app. In my case, I got over 5 notifications from the Safego app about one or several malicious links that were detected. Here’s what my wall looked like after several attempts by a compromised Facebook account to post to my wall:

I promptly turned off the “Publish to Wall” setting for now although my Weekly Stats will still get published to my wall (for now also).

In summary: The BitDefender Safego facebook app is a Set It and Forget It application which proved its usefulness by blocking a malicious link from being posted to my wall. I can’t count how many times I’ve seen friends’ walls overrun by compromised Facebook accounts posting spam links. Don’t let this happen to you: Get BitDefender Safego to save yourself some time. 🙂

Quick Update: Installation of BitDefender Total Security 2011

This is just a quick video I put together showing the entire installation process of BitDefender Total Security 2011 from start to finish. I’m still using BitDefender Total Security 2011 as my main internet security suite and I am still enthusiastic about the product & the security of my PC. I have to give the team at BitDefender props for being responsive to updates in other software that breaks *their* software.

Case in point: Firefox 3.6.9 was just released and in short order, I was informed by the nifty plugin-checker tool in Firefox, that the BitDefender AntiPhishing toolbar was incompatible with the latest release. Almost immediately, I tweeted to the BitDefender account on Twitter about the issue.

heads up @BitsyBD @bitdefender the bitdefender antiphishing toolbar is incompatible with latest firefox v3.6.9

In less than 2 days, an update was pushed out that rectified the problem!

happy @bitdefender released an update quickly for ff 3.6.9 antiphishing toolbar and outlook antispam issue.

Without further ado, embedded in this post is the video I created (using the excellent Camtasia screencasting software) to show the installation process of BitDefender Total Security 2011. I installed BitDefender Total Security 2011 on my HP TouchSmart 600 and the experience was markedly different (positively) from when I installed it on my notebook! Read my initial impressions of the BitDefender Total Security 2011 software on my site.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ki-iMYrx4wg