We’ll start with some corrections of my Epson ES-300W review, then I’ll brag about my ScreenCasts Online tutorial about OmniDiskSweeper and GrandPerspective, and my appearance on Let’s Talk Apple. Finally I’ll get into new content by telling you about an HDR app called Hydra from Creaceed. I’ve got a review of my new favorite Thunderbolt 3 dock called the CalDigit TS3+. Then I’ll tell the tale of how I piped holiday music throughout the house using AirPlay 2.
Hi, this is Allison Sheridan of the NosillaCast Apple Podcast, hosted at Podfeet.com, a technology geek podcast with an EVER so slight Apple bias. Today is Sunday, December 9, 2018, and this is show number 709. Before we kick into the show, I wanted to start with two corrections/additions from last week. They’re both about my review of the Epson ES-300W scanner.
In the review, I said that I chose PDF/A as the format of the output and it seemed to improve the scanner software’s ability to provide accurate OCR. Claus Wolf commented on the post:
PDF/A is a PDF designed for long time archiving… theoretically it is designed to still be opened in many years. PDF is very flexible with what it allows these days and all that flexibility is “hurting” archival efforts, thus the PDF/A format was introduced, reducing that flexibility and thus longevity. Really shouldn’t have impacted OCR, but whatever works, works…
Well that’s interesting. I have a feeling something else was going on with OCR and that the choice of PDF/A was a red herring. I think maybe the OCR software continues to crunch on the file even after it appears to be finished.
I was trying to figure out why some of my scans weren’t being recognized by Hazel. In the interface you can ask a specific rule to be previewed by selecting a file. I’d select a file that hadn’t been renamed as expected by Hazel and choose the relevant rule, and it would say that all of the tests for recognition had failed. In this case, it’s something like, “text matches Bank of America”.
But then I’d do something else and look back at the screen and the rule would have changed to passing instead of failing. Maybe I was fiddling around with the PDF/A thing right when the OCR software actually finished recognizing the text. In any case, thanks for the explanation, Claus!
The second comment was definitely a correction and it’s pretty funny. Remember I talked about that weird symbol that was on a toggle on the front? The same weird icon that looked like a typewriter was on the front too where there was a slot, and I figured out it was to scan business card readers. I tried scanning a business card and while it worked once, it never worked again.
Here’s what Dave Price wrote in:
Allison — The slot on the front left side is for scanning plastic ID cards, not business cards.
Check out the video on this page.
Now here’s the really funny part. There are two videos on the Amazon page he referenced. The one he meant me to look at was a marketing video from Epson where they clearly demonstrate the use of the slot for scanning plastic ID cards. Not sure why you’d need to do that but there you go.
The second video though is a guy doing a video review of the Epson ES-300W. In the video he explains how much he likes it, but how that darn business card scanner part doesn’t work at all. He does exactly what I did, shoving the card in over and over again and having it catch sometimes and get caught so he has to open it up and then sometimes spitting it back out. I had to laugh – ya think maybe they need to work on their graphics?
If you’ve ever noticed that I made a mistake, which happens really often, please correct me so I can make public the correction. If it’s a matter of opinion I might just argue with you but that’s super fun too. Thanks to Claus and Dave for keeping me honest.
Chit Chat Across the Pond
Chit Chat Across the Pond was super fun this week. I’ve told you before about the new snobOS Podcast with Nica Montfort and Terrance Gaines. I decided to ask Nica to come on Chit Chat to talk about her experiences growing up as a petite, girly girl African American who also has a degree in computer engineering and one in electrical engineering, and is working on her Masters in computer science.
We talked about her mentors growing up, who got her into computers, and what it was like being either the only woman or the only black person in her classes. She’s delightfully open and happy and fun and has some great stories to tell. I thought she was great to talk to and Bart has decided to have her on the next Let’s Talk Apple, so you know she’s good!
Check out Chit Chat Across the Pond or Chit Chat Across the Pond Lite in your podcatcher of choice and look for episode #574 to hear Nica’s stories. Of course you can always listen at the link in the show notes.
ScreenCasts Online Tutorial on OmniDiskSweeper and GrandPerspective
I’m pleased to announce that my latest video tutorial for ScreenCasts Online has been published. I decided to dig deep into two applications I’ve recommended before, both of which are designed to figure out where your disk space has wandered off to. The first is OmniDiskSweeper, which is free from the Omni Group. It’s text-based and very simple to use. The second is GrandPerspective and it graphically shows you the sizes of your files. I’ve been using GrandPerspective for years and years, but in teaching it I discovered that it is much more capable than I realized. The customizations and rules you can create in it are positively amazing.
Go check it out over at ScreenCastsOnline under the title Monitoring Disk Usage.
Appearance on Let’s Talk Apple
Speaking of Let’s Talk Apple, I had the pleasure of being a guest on the November recap episode of Bart’s show which aired on December 3rd, Episode #63, The other guest was the delightful Nick Riley. The main stories we discussed were the repairability effects of Apple’s new T2 chip, the latest anti-trust case against Apple about their app pricing, and the warming of relations between Apple and Amazon. It was great fun and I hope you’ll go check it out at www.lets-talk.ie/…
Blog Posts
Hydra HDR App for macOS
CalDigit TS3+ Thunderbolt 3 Dock – More Ports, More Money, More Better
Patreon and Amazon
In the review I just finished about the CalDigit TS3+ dock, I told you everything I had plugged into it. If you look at that blog post, you’ll see that everything on that list that can be bought on Amazon has a link. If you follow those links and actually buy those items, a small percentage may come back to help the show. Heck, you can click those links and then buy bird seed and even that purchase will go to help the show. It’s one of the two ways I can keep the podcast cost-neutral and it doesn’t cost you a dime. Thanks to all of you who have been using the Amazon Affiliate Links to do your holiday shopping.
The Power of AirPlay 2
That’s going to wind this up for this week. Don’t forget to send in your Dumb Questions, comments and suggestions by emailing me at [email protected], follow me on twitter @podfeet. Remember, everything good starts with podfeet.com/. podfeet.com/patreon, podfeet.com/facebook, podfeet.com/slack, podfeet.com/chat, podfeet.com/amazon! And if you want to join in the fun of the live show, head on over to podfeet.com/live on Sunday nights at 5pm Pacific Time and join the friendly and enthusiastic NosillaCastaways. Thanks for listening, and stay subscribed.