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Where do you keep your funds then?
If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.-John Q. Adams
You must accept one of two basic premises: Either we are alone in the universe, or we are not alone in the universe. And either way, the implications are staggering.-Wernher von Braun
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.-Albert Einstein
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You going to rob me? I buy gold and I use my missus account to get my wages paid into and bills to go out. So I use a bank account but I don't own one so therefore don't have top deal with them.
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Your wife has to deal with them though 
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My wife deals with ours too, I never need bother. Ain't wives great?
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Probably easier than dealing with you know who. 
Chris Meech
I am Canadian. [heard in a local bar]
In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is. [Yogi Berra]
posting about Crystal Reports here is like discussing gay marriage on a catholic church’s website.[Nishant Sivakumar]
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LOL. Was just wondering how you dealt with things in this wired world if you didn't deal with banks. There are other options like holding cash and using services like Western Union. But using your wife as intermediary is free.
If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.-John Q. Adams
You must accept one of two basic premises: Either we are alone in the universe, or we are not alone in the universe. And either way, the implications are staggering.-Wernher von Braun
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.-Albert Einstein
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The Reincarnation wrote: I use my missus account
Coward, hiding behind your wife;s skirts cos you're too timid to deal with the banks.
"If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur." Red Adair.
nils illegitimus carborundum
me, me, me
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I'm curious - I often hear about people changing banks for customer service reasons, you say you 'can't stand dealing with them'. In what way do you have so much interaction with your bank that this becomes a problem? I almost never go to my bank - the only reason would be if someone gives me a cheque and that is rare these days. I do all my banking online (and even before the internet, ATMs saw me much more thanreal-life tellers).
I've never had cause to have any 'customer service' type interaction with my bank, either here (NZ) or in the UK.
How is it that banks manage to piss people off so much?
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I had a student account which came with an interest free overdraft. But the first month they charged me interest. This meant I had to either ring them up(the amount of money they had taken out would have been similar to the amount for the phone bill so I would have lost out either way)or go in and speak to them. I went in and spoke to them, the lady was very nice and apologetic and assured me it wouldn't happen next month. She lied. I went in again got the same assurances about it not happening the next month.But It did.
It got to the point that I would wait 3-4 months before going in and getting the past 3-4 months interest paid back in in one go. Each time they assured me it wouldn't happen again and every month it did. This went on for 4 years. For 4 years they could not sort out a simple thing as not charging interest on an interest-free overdraft. If they had been over paying me interest on my savings they would have spotted it straight away and sorted it. I can think of no other business where you would need to go in monthly for 4 years in order to sort out a simple problem which they should have done correct in the first place.
This is just one example of many I have had with the Wankers I mean Bankers.
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mark merrens wrote: "We need to know".
There's no law that specifies that each transaction should be accompanied by an excuse.
Drugs, hookers and alcohol.
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I find this similar to the memo line on checks. The only checks I write go to one of my roommates, who owns the house we live in. I write all kinds of ridiculous things on the memo line each month, such as "Assassin Fee" and "Midget Stripper Cleanup".
The United States invariably does the right thing, after having exhausted every other alternative. -Winston Churchill
America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between. -Oscar Wilde
Wow, even the French showed a little more spine than that before they got their sh*t pushed in.[^] -Colin Mullikin
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mark merrens wrote: One question was: How did you get this money?
Not sure I helped by writing: Through hard work.
This made me think of a life insurance eligibility form I was recently filling out. There was a section where it asked some obvious serious ones like "Does the person have AIDS or HIV".. Stuff like that. But the last one asked Does the person receive prescription medication (something along those lines).
Then on the next section any "Yes" you must fill out more info. One of the columns was "Condition" and another was "Effectiveness of Treatment" (something like that).
Well my wife takes BC and so for the condition I wrote "Woman" and for the effectiveness I wrote "She is bleeding monthly so I think it's all good"
Still waiting to here back if our life insurance will be approved
Computers have been intelligent for a long time now. It just so happens that the program writers are about as effective as a room full of monkeys trying to crank out a copy of Hamlet.
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I have several important and private documents I would like to try 'scanning' with my digital camera. On or two very quick experiments shows image quality and size are excellent.
Two problems I found though were the yellowing of white paper - I was advised not to use the flash, so the the ambient light colour in the room seems to have dominated. What should I do about lighting? Use an artificial electric lamp with a very white light, or use sunlight in a much more brightly lit room?
My other problem is crinkles and folds in the documents that clearly show in the 'scans'. One's first though is to place a piece of glass over the document to flatten it, but that brings the risk of reflections. Is there some kind of material I can use in place of glass that is highly transparent, but non-reflective? Something I could get from a photography or art shop, or maybe a printing supply shop?
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Can you not back light it somehow?
Place it on glass with a light underneath it, then more glass on top?
Isn't that kind of how scanners work?
Every man can tell how many goats or sheep he possesses, but not how many friends.
Shed Petition[ ^]
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I was going to mention that as well. Many all-in-one printers can scan images. I've found the quality to be good enough and if it isn't, any half-decent imaging software can make corrections without losing much of the original warts and all.
"I do not have to forgive my enemies, I have had them all shot." — Ramón Maria Narváez (1800-68).
"I don't need to shoot my enemies, I don't have any." - Me (2012).
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clickity[^]
Panic, Chaos, Destruction. My work here is done.
Drink. Get drunk. Fall over - P O'H
OK, I will win to day or my name isn't Ethel Crudacre! - DD Ethel Crudacre
I cannot live by bread alone. Bacon and ketchup are needed as well. - Trollslayer
Have a bit more patience with newbies. Of course some of them act dumb - they're often *students*, for heaven's sake - Terry Pratchett
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You could always just... you know... use a scanner. It is what they're designed for after all. A cheap 3 in 1 printer is roughly £35 in the UK. I cant see them being much more expensive anywhere else civilised.
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Or just do what normal people do and use the equipment at work.
Every man can tell how many goats or sheep he possesses, but not how many friends.
Shed Petition[ ^]
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The equipment at work doesn't do colour scanning. :(
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I take it you're not allowed to order one then?
Making up bullsh*t business cases for something I want at work is a specialty of mine.
Every man can tell how many goats or sheep he possesses, but not how many friends.
Shed Petition[ ^]
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I'm a contractor that's been here a month and attracted attention by taking too much leave, and being late from transport problems. I don't think I'll be ordering anything until I release some software.
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Just order it and be damned, they'll be awestruck by your balls and not say anything.
Honest.
Here is an email that I sent to my boss 4 years ago;
Quote: Now that we have a 'waterit' e-mail account, it would make sense that we have some sort of method of monitoring this if it is to be useful in catching problems as they develop.
It is relatively simple to connect to the Exchange Server and monitor the various folders we have set up and then display the results of this in a webpage.
This web-page would poll at whatever interval we require and display whatever we want, it could flash if e-mails are received that could possibly indicate an immediate problem, it could display totals so we can see what is going on in various systems.
It would also be feasible to write scripts to monitor activity on the servers so we could see any problems developing with disc space, DB activity, backups or whatever.
If we were to have this setup and working then obviously we need a screen on it, were it to be a normal monitor then obviously that would require someone to walk past and look at it.
What we ideally need is a big wall-mounted screen that is clearly visible from everyone's desk (next to the clock is an area that immediately presents itself.
This would mean less time spent checking things to see how they are progressing, and immediate notification to the room, and thereby to whoever is present and currently holding responsibility to do something.
It would also mean that we could make it flash red, and sound a siren.
This, I firmly believe, would be a good idea.
The response I received was;
Quote: Chris,
Find out the cost (ballpark) and I will do a business case.
Ade.
And we ended up with a big telly in our office that had freeview and could quickly be switched to the monitoring screen should the need arise. We never did get around to creating anywhere near as exciting a monitoring suite as described.
But at least we had the equipment to do so at some point in the future.
Every man can tell how many goats or sheep he possesses, but not how many friends.
Shed Petition[ ^]
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Brady Kelly wrote: I'm a contractor that's been here a month and attracted attention by taking too much leave, and being late from transport problems
And when you are at work, spending all your time dicking about with your phone and personal documents?
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I'm not dicking about at work with the scanning, simply asking so that I might have a few responses when I get home and really get scanning.
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I have a brand new camera I've hardly used. I just thought it would be an interesting experiment.
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Well, what I usually do is pin the paper to a cork board or similar (to keep it flat), set the white balance in the camera based of the paper I'm shooting (if you don't have a manual white balance setting just pick the closest preset) and take the shot. If I can be bothered I'll even put the camera on a Tripod so that I can line up the paper properly.
As for the pins in the corner of the page I just edit them out after.
If using a tripod you don't need to worry about having a bright light shining on your papers (which may cause shadows on some creases) since you can just allow the camera to use a slower shutter speed.
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1. use a tripod; have the camera and paper at 90o (have the paper flat on the table for example).
2. If you want to use a glass, you look at your local framing shop for "museum" quality glass that have less reflection (there are different quality of those)
3. Use ambient lighting and/or a diffuser for your flash or point your flash at the ceiling for an indirect flash; this will reduce the amount of shadowing of the folds and crinkles.
4. Shoot raw and adjust the white balance in post-processing.
Also, don't try to iron out the crinkles...
Nihil obstat
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Maximilien wrote: Also, don't try to iron out the crinkles...
This is also sound advice on scrotum care.
Every man can tell how many goats or sheep he possesses, but not how many friends.
Shed Petition[ ^]
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ChrisElston wrote: Maximilien wrote: Also, don't try to iron out the crinkles...
This is also sound advice on scrotum care.
Ouch. 
Bob Dole The internet is a great way to get on the net.
 2.0.82.7292 SP6a
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If you have a half decent phone camera, try this....
CamScanner[^]
Works well.
I are n00b.
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SinghUlarity... wrote: Works well.
Uhm, it won't work on any non-Android phone.
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You deserve it if you're using a non-android phone
I are n00b.
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Well I've used iPhones and now a Windows Phone, and I rarely install apps. So even if I had an Android phone, I'd not install this. I only use the browser and email apps irrespective of the phone I use!
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I don't know much about IE on Windows phone but Safari on the iPhone is terrible, when I was on iOS I avoided it at any cost. Any particular reason for avoiding apps or you're just too lazy to be arsed into installing any? 
I are n00b.
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Part of it is being lazy, the other bit is I am not very tech-savvy when it comes to using gadgets (mostly due to lack of interest). Kinda ironic I guess given that I spend most of my time writing code, including on mobile devices.
That said, I did get a Nexus 7 for my son and helped him install several games. So I am familiar with Google's app store.
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You can use a white-balance correction tool during post-processing to get the yellow color whitened up
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What could I use for post procesing, that has nice white balance correction?
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Gimp is pretty good. Just take Colors / Auto / White Balance and it nearly always does a very good job.
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I set the camera on a tripod and use long exposure times. I've succeeded in 'scanning' even nearly unreadable papers using this method. This works even in a dark room, given the exposure times are long enough, and the sensor in your camera is powerful enough.
I use a DSLR though, but I presume that even a point-and-shoot camera should be able to produce good results.
PS: You'll need to do some post processing. But it will be simple enough, and you could get it done with something like Picasa or Paint .NET.
"Real men drive manual transmission" - Rajesh.
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You could iron the page if it is badly creased. Or get some of that non-reflective glass/plastic that picture framing shops are always trying to sell.
Wouldn't it be a lot easier just to use a scanner? I mean printers with scanners are so cheap these days that they are almost disposable.
"If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur." Red Adair.
nils illegitimus carborundum
me, me, me
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Could you just take it to a Kinkos or some such and ask for the document to be scanned. It'd probably be pretty cheap.
I think you'll get a more professional result out of something like that than doing all this work to use your camera.
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I've never had much luck with that, Brady. Glare, color shifts, keystoning, or some other damned thing always interferes. The best I've managed so far happened yesterday, when I needed to get a signed document on company letterhead to a government agency in a hurry. The scanner isn't working, the document is in Word format, and the fax machine is too poor quality to serve. So I signed the printed document, photographed my signature with my phone, emailed the picture to myself, cropped, resized, rotated and color-corrected the image on my desktop, then pasted it into the Word document. It looked as good as the original, so I pdf'd it and emailed it off, and no one has questioned its validity. 
I do plan to keep my signature file locked in my safe, on a thumb drive, and no images of it on my desktop. 
Will Rogers never met me.
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Set the white balance on the camera. I'm shocked at how few people actually do this, or do it in editing.
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Until today I couldn't figure where to set the white balance. It's greyed out in the normal settings, and you have to go into 'deep settings'.
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It's typically a very manual feature on most new cameras. I've pulled off some great shots using it. My professional photographer friend showed me that he carried around a white sheet of paper in his pocket. When in strange or bad lighting, he would whip it out at arm's length to set the white balance, then get his picture.
I didn't mean it in a mean way, I'm just surprised at the amount of people that discuss the same issue on all sorts of forums, and rarely do people ever mention this feature.
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My biggest problem is paralax. I can't seem to get the picture parallel to the document. It always looks skewed; now that is going to take a tripod, which will only happen after payday, or just lots of practice, and a trip to the local print shop for the currently needed scan. It's still interesting though and I will continue as a little hobby.
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This[^] one.
I personally think it should be fine as long as content is helpful and more article like. But I guess, veteran article writers might answer better.
"Bastards encourage idiots to use Oracle Forms, Web Forms, Access and a number of other dinky web publishing tolls.", Mycroft Holmes[ ^]
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Pity - I replied to that one before I saw this...
If you get an email telling you that you can catch Swine Flu from tinned pork then just delete it. It's Spam.
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Now we need to give honorary membership to veteran writers club.
"Bastards encourage idiots to use Oracle Forms, Web Forms, Access and a number of other dinky web publishing tolls.", Mycroft Holmes[ ^]
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Oi! I'm not that old!
Ok, ok, I am that old. But still...
If you get an email telling you that you can catch Swine Flu from tinned pork then just delete it. It's Spam.
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