Tuesday, March 28, 2006

EUREKA ! ! !

Two things:

1. Several sister bloggers are participating in posting old pics of themselves, especially ones from the 70's and 80's where they have BIG hair, LOL. Well, this is my Trumann, Arkansas, THS graduation pic, 1982, and this is about as big as my hair got. Sorry it's so dark, but I was tanned from chopping cotton all that summer for spending money for senior stuff and to help out Mom and Dad. Dad's plant closed in June of that year, after he'd worked over 46 years there. Plus, the pic is 24 years old, too, and is dark with age. Ouch, that hurt!! Which leads me to #2.

2. I have lamented, bewailed, moaned, wished and coveted concerning the fact that I didn't have a working scanner. My pastor and his wife recently upgraded their puter from Windows 98 to Windows ME, and their copier/scanner was no longer compatible with the WinME, so they asked me if I would like (!?!) to have their old one. I practically drooled as I politely said, "Yes, Please, and Thank You." Oh, Happy Day ! ! Or so I thought. Problem. Large, insurmountable problem. The scanner has to hook up to the printer to work properly. I have only a USB port on my printer, and the scanner has the long 16 or however many pin connecter. Bummer. But Wait ! There IS a free 16 pin slot open on the computer. Thinking I had nothing to lose by trying, I hooked it up, and Lo and Behold, it worked ! Well, hold the applause, because I discovered only parts of the equipment worked. The copier worked fine, but the scanner wouldn't scan. At all. Nothing. Nada. Zip. Sniff, sniff.............Sob........Waaaaahhhhhhhh.....................I was heartbroken. Mildly disappointed, too ! Oh, well, I was better off than before, at least now I had a working copier.

Then, today, I was following up on a tip that Mike shared with me about taking digital pics of my photos to use on my blog. He can do that, and does a very good job at it, too, as you can see on his blog by clicking the Mike link above. I, however, haven't been having much luck with it. I tried taking a couple of pics that way, but they were either too light or too dark. Too blurry. Too.........just not good. Some were just....Eh.... So I was just fiddling with my Microsoft PictureIt 99 program that my Handsome BIL Johnny and my Lovely Sister Donna gave me, and I had one of those Epiphany thingies. A lightbulb lit up ! Fireworks went off ! Birds sang ! The World became a better place for all mankind ! World peace may even now be breaking out all over the globe, folks ! My PictureIt program has a menu with how you want to acquire pictures, and, Oh, Sweet Mercy!--There is a place to scan in pictures. Drumroll, please................Just on a whim, I clicked on it, and it asked which scanner I wanted to use to scan with. Not having anything to lose again, I selected the model I have hooked up. It didn't throw up an error window. Now, I am really getting excited ! I put that graduation pic on there and proceeded as directed. And it worked ! ! Halelujiah, it scanned ! I have joined the Scanning Band, oh, yes, I have ! Now I just have to work on fine-tuning the contrast, sizing, cropping, etc. I was so tickled with the first one of my graduation pic, I just stopped right where I was to post this. Hopefully, I will be able to post many more pics on the blog now that I have a working scanner. I may even get adventurous enough to post some pics on one of the photo hosts and make a link to it, like I have seen several other do. In the meantime, I will be playing with my newly discovered scanner. :)

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

Nice glasses. :-) I know. 1982. Believe it or not, I had a similar style back in 1991 or so. I had a large face back then (330 lbs. at the time) and it was suggested the large style would do well for me. Looking back now, though, I would have chosen otherwise. When I show people a picture of me back then, they tell me I looked like "Pat" from SNL. :-)

Congrats on getting the scanner working. Yes, a picture of a picture is a difficult process. It took me 30 minutes to get the two good shots. I'm glad you got your scanner up and running. Sure is nice, isn't it? Anybody else willing to part with a "non-working" scanner? :-)

Johnny said...

beautiful picture sister-in-law. way to go with the scanner. the way i figure things out is just to start pushing buttons and if i get into trouble i just shut the puter down..lol.

Diane@Diane's Place said...

Mike,
Hey, now, I was stylin' at the time! LOL! And I will have you know, I made that purple dress I had on. I sewed it on my Grandma's old Singer treadle machine, and I bought the material with some of my cotton-chopping money. So there! (blows raspberries) Hee Hee

We'll see how the scanner thing goes. I will have to fiddle with all the options and get used to them. (hopefully) :)

Diane@Diane's Place said...

Johnny,
Thank you, kind sir! My approach is very similar to yours, but if you'll recall, I got into a little trouble with trying to hook up a printer back in December, and ended up being offline for a month. I got lucky that it just cost me $20 to get it fixed. LOL
So I am very careful what I do with my precious puter now. ;)

Nice to see you here, come back anytime, and welcome! :)

Meow (aka Connie) said...

Yay, that is great. Isn't it exciting when you figure something out that has been bugging you for some time. I get such a thrill out of it.
To Mike ... I have a non-working scanner, which i never really liked or figured out properly (I now have a multipurpose one in my Canon printer / copier / scanner). But, I think it's gonna cost a lot of postage from Australia !!
Take care, happy scanning, Meow

Diane@Diane's Place said...

Meow,
Thanks! :)

Mike, did you catch what Meow said? LOL ;)

Anonymous said...

For those that have read my "About Me" section of my blog, you'll know that I work for a major airline. Meow, I could probably fly there and pick it up cheaper than I could buy one. :-) Actually, it would be standby, so I probably couldn't even get a seat there in the first place. :-( Maybe you could send it with Steve Irwin the next time he is up this way. :-)

Diane, I'll try to dig up a pic of my graduation in 1985. It would be good for a laugh. In fact, I will try to find the "Pat" picture too. An even better laugh. :-)

Diane@Diane's Place said...

Mike,
The pics will be interesting, I'm sure, LOL. Looking forward to them. ;)

Sister said...

Hey Diane,
Your graduation portrait is soooo 1982...and I just love it! Congrats on getting your scanner to work! And I loved looking at your bananna pudding...I could eat a whole one by myself.

Diane@Diane's Place said...

Hey, sister,
Long time no comment! Yep, I was all that in 1982, and thanks. :)

Still working with the scanner. :)

And I like the pudding, too. I'm glad it was all gone before I left the church with it, or I probably would have finished it off, LOL! ;)

It was nice to hear from Nashville again.

Greeneyes said...

Hi Diane
happy for you getting your scanner up and runnig , I have been without for a couple weeks, changed computers and now the darn scanner somehow or another is connecting with my web cam????? I cannot change the TWAIN on it arggggggggghh I will end up with a home perm if I got at it again , sticking fingers and plugs where they shouldnt go ! nice pic and I like the dress , you still sew?
Greeneyes

Diane@Diane's Place said...

Green eyed girl,
I had some problems with a printer taking over the port for my modem in December, and I ended up paying a guy who does all the computer stuff for the local high school $20 to come fix it. Took him 10 minutes, and I worked on it for over a month. My BIL and two of my sisters worked on it, too, but no luck.

Thanks for the compliments on the dress and the pic. Yes, I still sew, but it has been a while. I made all my maternity clothes 19 years ago, and I made a lot of my daughter's fancy dresses and such, but I don't do much sewing anymore. Material and notions have gotten so high it's about the same to buy most things as it is to make it.

Thanks for the visit! :)

Diane Viere said...

For a girl who thought computers were just a phase (!!!!)...I am now so-o-o-o dependent on all related computer items--especially my scanner. Especially now that I have a digital camera! Don't get me wrong--I don't know how to hook my digital camera up to my computer....so I do it the l-o-n-g way...I print the photo...and (this is why the scanner is so important) SCAN it into my computer! One day--I'll learn --but, as the expression goes--it's hard to teach (this) old dog new tricks! I'm just glad the computer wasn't a phase--I L.O.V.E. blogging!

Diane

Diane@Diane's Place said...

Diane,
I was a late bloomer, but I have had a computer for about 5 years. I just got online in Nov. 2005, and started this blog at the end of Jan. 2006. Now I don't know what I did with my time
B.I.............Before Internet, LOL.

I love my puter and blogging, too. :)

Nashe^ said...

omg!!!! u look very.... Diane-y.

Hehehe. pretty cool pic.

Diane@Diane's Place said...

Nashe,
Why, thank you......I think.....LOL :)

Anonymous said...

love the picture!!
chopping cotton?! Man, that had to have been hard! (i live in a subdivision surrounded by cotton fields. that's as close to the really hard work i get.)