Ubuntu Simple Scan Rocks!

Today, for the first time with Ubuntu Lucid, I had to scan something. With some trepidation, I ran the 'Simple Scan' utility, and decided to just click the Scan button on the toolbar, to see why it's been getting good press.

There's a good reason... it "just works". I didn't have to configure the scanner myself - the utility just found it on its own. I have an HP OfficeJet MFD, accessible over Ethernet - and the Simple Scan utility found it, and started a scan (flatbed, not ADF - again, correct choice), and let me save it. I made a small mistake of choosing 'Scan Photo', which saves the scanned image as a JPEG - not ideal for text. Still, I was pleasantly surprised - this is one change in Lucid that has actually worked flawlessly the first time I tried it. And what's more, it worked in "dumb user" mode - that is, I didn't have to go looking for Preferences or Options to try and tell it where to look.

I like!! :-)