I was recently asked how I would go about digitizing books from my library. I've been wondering what people are doing so I did a bit of research this morning and found out there are interesting projects out there for building your own book scanner.

The video below shows the current scanner design from DIY Book Scanner. It looks like the site also hosts links to other designs as well. Including one built with Legos.

I found another scanner from The Book Liberator Project that isn't as complex as the DIY Book Scanner, and should be easier to store. I found it on Make

Finally, it looks like ION might have an inexpensive scanner coming out, but they've removed it from their website. Here is a link to a review I found.

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I've been using Apparent's Doxie scanner since it first came out. It's small and light enough to keep in my backpack and does a great Job scanning. I ordered the Doxie Go as soon as it was announced and it is now my new favorite portable scanner. Since the Go has a battery you don't have to be near your computer to scan documents. Which makes it much easier to get those paper items into electronic form since you're no longer tethered to the computer.

The Doxie Go has had Eye-Fi support since it shipped. Apparent announced today that they have a bundled option Doxie Go + Wifi available.

Doxie Go Review from Shawn Blanc on Vimeo.

One other benefit of the Doxie system is it shares well with other services. They have their own cloud service, but I use the send to Evernote option since my life is stored there. The latest version of their software also creates searchable PDFs when you scan with the Go.

While the Doxie system is great for most needs I still use my Fujitsu ScanSnap 1500M for large scan runs. Its speed and double-sided scanning can't be beat. The only real issue I have with the Doxie is that it doesn't handle paper that it thinks is too long like a grocery sales receipt. The Fujitsu allows you to press and hold the scan button to signal a non-standard length scan. I haven't found a way to do that with Doxie.

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Tonight's dinner turned out well. The menu was broiled pork chops and tomatoes, sauteed mushrooms, steamed cabbage, and garlic asparagus. I'm happy with the mushrooms now so the entire recipe will be included.

The cabbage is the easiest part and I started it first. Simply slice it into bite sized pieces, place it in a large skillet, with about 1/4" water on medium heat. I also add real bacon pieces. Cover. When it starts to boil turn it down to low and let it steam until tender.

I started the mushrooms next. See my recipie below. While the mushrooms were sauteeing, I washed and prepared the asparagus. I steamed them in the microwave for 5 minutes close to the texture I like but not all the way. Soft but still crispy.

I then washed and quartered two roma tomatoes to broil after the pork chops are flipped.

At this point I set the oven to bake at 350F. While it's preheating I rinsed the butterfly cut pork chops and placed them on the broiling pan. Dashed with a little worchestershire sauce and then rubbed with ground sage. I also put a little bit of water in the broiling pan to make it easier to clean and provide some moisture during cooking.

After the meat was ready and the oven still heating. I sliced one peeled head of garlic into small slices. Put it in a small bowl and covered with extra virgin olive oil and let it sit.

Once the oven finished heating, I switched it to broil (500F) and put the pork chops in on the middle rack for 6 minutes. While it was cooking, I added the olive oil and garlic to a larger skillet and sauteed the garlic.

After 6 minutes, I moved the chops to the top rack for 2 minutes. When the two minutes were up. I pulled the chops out, flipped them, added pepper, put the quartered tomatoes on the broiler pan, then placed them back on the top rack for 5 minutes.

While the meat was finishing, I sauteed the asparagus in the olive oil with garlic. Adding just enough to cover the pan and flipping after about 1 minute. I repeated this until all of the asparagus where sauteed. Add a touch of salt to the asparagus to pull out the flavor after they're sauteed.

When the pork chops were done, I pulled them out and let them rest for about 5 minutes before serving.

The meal turned out well, but I'm going to make a couple of adjustments next time. Firstly, I'm going to try adding white vinegar to the cabbage to offset the sweetness a bit and complement the mushrooms better. Secondly, I'm going to remove the garlic slices from the oil just after they start to brown to get a richer feel and preserve more of the taste.

Sauteed Mushrooms with Shallots

1/2 pint white mushrooms sliced thin (1/2 container)

1 shallot sliced thin

red cooking wine

extra virgin olive oil

In a warmed skillet add just enough oil to cover the bottom of a small skillet. Give the oil a couple of minutes to heat up then add the sliced shallot. Saute until the shallots start to caramelize then add the mushrooms. I add a splash of red cooking wine and cook until the mushrooms are tender and darken. When the mushrooms are close to done, put about 1/2" of red cooking wine in a small sauce pan and bring it nearly to a boil. Transfer the contents of the skillet to the sauce pan, cover, reduce the head, and let it simmer until you're ready to serve the rest of the meal.

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Weather was great for being out today. A little over 10.5mi. Didn't get a picture, but watch some guys release a opossum from a live trap. Quite a few people out hiking, riding horses, and some geocachers.

map:
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.@marshall_law and @dizymonkee and their droid army.

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Last night I decided to camp out in the backyard. Why? Because I could and with temps dropping to the teens made even sound like more fun. The skies were clear, no wind, and a full moon. It also makes for a good testing of the limits of my gear. It's much better to find that out when you're at home than 20 miles down the trail.

I wasn't expecting to see fog coming off the bag when I took the photos, but it mades sense and interesting photos.

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The other benefit. Waking up to the moon nestled in the trees.

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Nice end to a long day.

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The subject @kizzlethizzle wanted. Apparently it was only off for a moment.

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New book arrived today. Looking forward to trying recipes with honey replacing some of the sugar.

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Getting settled in at our new temporary office space we have a wee bit more room. 

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I've wanted a script to move tweetdeck to the appropriate screen in Spaces depending on whether I have a secondary monitor attached or not. The initial version doesn't do anything more than set the property for tweetdeck to be on space 4 or all spaces depending on the display configuration.

Once I figure out how to get the sizes of the displays, then I'll move it to the correct coordinates as well. Then the next step is to figure out how to detect display size changes and execute it automatically. But, for now, I added a bash alias that I can use to run the script.

alias organize="osascript /Library/Scripts/Basics/Organize\ Monitors.scpt"

The most up-to-date source to the script is out on github. 

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This was a surprising find at my local World Market, It's spicy with a little fruit forward. I'd love to try it with venison or a spicy sausage. Character changed for the better as I let it sit. Inexpensive enough to pick up several more bottles.

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Pleasant outside and a nice sunset to boot.

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There is a whole lot more coming over the next few weeks, but we made some announcements today. We raised a little more capital and we're working with PayPal on Titanium+Commerce. 

• Mashable: PayPal Partners with Appcelerator for Mobile Commerce
• CNN Money: Paypal dives into mobile payments
• VentureBeat: Appcelerator raises $9M to build app for PayPal merchant

More to be done.

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This is definitely a better way to spend a Monday.

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Gorgeous weather out.

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Pretty day to be heading back to Texas. Really looking forward to it.  Lot's to do the next few weeks but it's going to be fun.

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