(no subject)

(The Kootenay School of the Arts is paying me to digitize their slides - And I must rant)

<rant>

For the record, the HP scanjet 5590 is one of the worst pieces of home electronic equipment that I have ever touched. Do not buy one. If someone offers to give you one for free, you should suspect that they wish to do you ill.

Here, it sits motionless, leaving you to wonder whether it is about to scan (in which case, you should not interrupt it), or whether it has crashed. If it has crashed, it will, after eight to ten minutes, give you an error message - then do exactly the same thing the next time you try to use it. This means that you must unplug it and plug it in again.

Things that cause it to crash include:

• (90% likely) Clicking the "yes, I would like to scan another picture" button (which will cause you to lose the prior scan as well)
• (20% likely) Clicking the "no, I would not like to scan another picture button, then starting a new scan from scratch

When it does not crash, the track may (<5%) fail, causing it to make a loud "clacking" noise which you cannot fix

When it does scan, the pictures are often (~%12) streaked, as if you were viewing them through some sort of Blade-Runner-esque neon rainstorm

And when it scans correctly, the "automatically corrected" slides are usually (>60%) dark

Additionally, the interface program does not understand what "do not ask me these questions again" means.

[Edit:] It also does not recognize "purple" as a valid colour, assuming instead that it is a part of a frame, and to be automatically cropped

Do not buy the HP scanjet 5590

</rant>