Canon CanoScan D2400UF

Canon CanoScan D2400UF

I have an ancient scanner, a Canon CanoScan D2400UF. I bought it to allow me to scan 35mm slides. I think I had Windows 95 the last time I tried to use it. Being old, I thought I'd try it in Linux first. It's not even mentioned on http://www.sane-project.org/sane-mfgs.html#SCANNERS. So, no luck there.
However, the Canon website has drivers for it, for 

• Windows Vista (32-bit)
• Windows XP (32-bit)
• Windows Me (32-bit)
• Windows 2000 (32-bit)

now where can I get a 32-bit Windows/XP from?  Because I'm not going near the others. 

 

The options are:

• Acquire and build a Windows/XP (virtual) machine
• Purchase a 35mm slide scanner that will work on modern systems. 

Scam?

I've not heard this one before, and as I'm still here and on the internet I'm presuming it's a scam.

I received a call and the guy on the phone knew who I was and my address (easy information to find), he claimed to be from Microsoft.  He said that my Windows license had been compromised and was being used by others, as a result, Microsoft were going to cancel the license and provide me with another one.

He wanted to check my license, but I told him the PC was not on, and I wasn't prepared to wait 20 minutes for it to power up.  I asked for my license key.  He gave me 00C0 4FD7 B062.  I was expecting five sets of five characters (a Microsoft Product Key), so was rather surprised to get something that looked for all the world like a MAC address.

I said I'd call back (I won't) and could he give me a number.  He did: 1800 212-1199.  I then gave him the go ahead to terminate the license.  This number only returns Chinese/Japanese and Russian sites when put into Google.

He called from 02011123236 which seems to have a bit of a reputation for dodgy calls.

If you didn't know, it would have been easy to fall for this scam: he was polite, articulate and apparently helpful.  My guess is that he would look at something on my PC and tell me that the licence I was using wasn't valid, and then charge me for a new one.

Microsoft OEM licenses are bound to the hardware, and if used on other machines will prevent Windows update and give you some very annoying nag screens.  You may also lose your desktop background.  I have never seen access to the internet disabled - that's what you need to resolve the issue.

Back to the bad old days?

I've had a Nokia smart phone for a while now. Its a C30, the reviews I have read suggest that it should be a great phone. It was relatively cheap, and was intended to be an introduction to smart phones. There are several problems with it. Most notable amonst them is the problem of getting it to use wireless when available and 3G when not. It just doesn't work very well, in fact it doesn't work at all, unless you have all the settings set to automatic. I'm on pay-as-you-go, so a random app using my data is bad news. The browser (Opera mini) is the worst offender, I cannot persuade it to connect through a wireless connection. There are two browsers, and I have added a twitter app. There is also a Communities app, it is next to useless because the white text is on light blue background (whose brilliant idea was that I wonder?). The apps in general are pretty poor. The twitter app regulary hangs and will not work again until you either logout/login, or take the battery out and restart. One or the other!

For Christmas I was given a Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 tablet. Very nice it is too, BUT ... Just like the phone it has some little quirks, generally the hardware seems good. So does the operating system, I have just let it upgrade, and all seems OK, although I don'l like where it displays messages now. The apps are another story. I downloaded a key board with cursor keys, but its horrible because it won't go away. The browser Skyfire, supposedly the quickest, is certainly quick when it works, which isn't that often, I'm now trying Firefox - various sites don' load or don' always load, and now I'm trying chrome -not too many problems so far. The default browser is slow, but most reliable until the reload is touched, then I invaribly get an internet page not available message. Polaris, the office app, doesn't load all Word documents, just most of them! I've tried OliveOffice, but haven't got very far yet, it has a peculiar approach to typing.

This takes me back 15 or more years to the early days of the PC. Applications that don't work, or don't work reliably. I hope we get better development with the newer devices more quickly than that. There is another BUT ...
The tablet IS pretty intuitive, and the bits that aren't, are easy to learn, its OK for browsing but has a long way to go for more serious work.