Post Your Naked Pictures On The Internet!
Written: Oct 27 '00
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Scans beautifully, great pricing.
Cons: None.
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| j3nny3lf's Full Review: Mustek Be@rPaw Flatbed Scanner |
As everybody knows, posting and viewing pornographic images on the internet is one of the primary reasons so many homes now have personal computers. I know that the minute I discovered the internet, the first thing that I wanted to do was to take all those old Polaroids of my ex-husband tied up, gagged, and covered with whipped cream and put them on usenet for all the world to see.
The problem was that every time I shoved the Polaroid print into that little slot in the front of the machine, I got an error window. "Error reading drive A:\ abort, retry, fail?"
So I called up my local geek genius (who just happened to be the 6 year old down the street) and I asked little Muffy what I was doing wrong. After she stopped giggling and calling me a silly doodoohead, she came over and explained patiently to me that I needed this thing called a "scanner". I had to "scan" my pictures first, then "edit" them, and only then could I show my ex-husband's chocolate covered family jewels to the world.
Oooookay.
So I went to Egghead Software, which still had stores in those days, and I bought my very first scanner. I paid $400 for it, and it was a hand held scanner that would scan a snapshot, if I dragged it along the image smoothly and slowly enough. If I wanted to scan a larger image, I had to do it in two (or more) swipes, then put the pieces back together in an image editor, kind of like doing a jigsaw. EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW. Thank GOD those days are gone! I can't list the number of times that my ex's packet came out looking warped and... twisted. The legions on usenet used to post followup giggles to my image posts.
Since those dark ages, I have had three other scanners, all flatbeds. The latest in the series of scanners for me is the Mustek Be@rPaw.
The Be@rPaw holds the distinction of being the least expensive and best scanner I have ever purchased. I got it at OfficeMax for $65, and have not regretted it yet.
Installation is simple, just plug it in to your USB port and you're off and running.
I'm now reading most of the technical data off of the packaging inserts, so bear with me, but I didn't bother to memorize this stuff, all I care about is: does it WORK? The answer is yes. But since some of you like the techie stuff, here goes:
Be@rPaw has an optical resolution of 600x1200 dpi and can be software enhanced up to 19,200 dpi. It captures 42 bit color images and can enhance that to a 48 bit palette, meaning over 280 trillion colors. What this means for the average user is: This sucker will give your scans a clarity like you have never seen before, and the colors will be truer to life than they have ever been.
Like every scanner I've ever seen, Be@rPaw is TWAIN compliant, and I am not sure why this techie info brags about that as if it were something special, but hey, who am I to question the propagandists?
The scanner comes with Ulead Photo Express SE, which is, in my opinion, a very poor excuse of a graphics editor, but since I am a Photoshop junkie, I'm used to a Cadillac, not a Volkswagen, for editing images. I'm sure that most non-graphics-professionals will find the Ulead program to be sufficient for their needs.
Also included is Scansoft's TextBridge Classic, which lets you scan any text document and then open it up in your favorite word processing software. I have had this software in one form or another since that first dinosaur of a scanner, and the truth is that I have never used it, so I can't really discuss it.
Perhaps the best feature of this scanner is the 5 buttons on the front panel, which allow you to scan, fax, and email (and etc) your images, all at the touch of a button. Convenience is always a winner with me.
Requirements for the scanner are:
Pentium 200 MHz or higher CPU
Windows 98
USB Port
SVGA vid card and monitor
CD-ROM or DVD-ROM
32 MB RAM (64 recommended)
120 MB available hard disk for the software.
To use the internet features, you will need either Netscape Communicator 4.5 or MSIE 4.0, and of course, a modem and internet account.
Since getting this scanner, I have risen in prominence in the usenet newsgroups. I am no longer the laughing stock of alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.ex-spouseswithwhippedcream, in fact, they love my scans now. Of course, my ex-husband doesn't, but as I keep telling him, he should be happy that all of those women (and men) keep emailing him and asking him for dates. No more warped and twisted manly bits, now they're.. well, this is a family site, I'd better shut up now. *wink*
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
j3nny3lf
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Member: Jenn Thomas
Location: San Carlos, CA
Reviews written: 98
Trusted by: 46 members
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