{"id":18831,"date":"2026-10-12T06:52:06","date_gmt":"2026-10-12T05:52:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tikit.net\/panfans\/?p=18831"},"modified":"2026-10-12T07:02:56","modified_gmt":"2026-10-12T06:02:56","slug":"vuescan-spinx-george-mackay-brown-and-rip-jeffrey-archer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tikit.net\/panfans\/2026\/10\/12\/vuescan-spinx-george-mackay-brown-and-rip-jeffrey-archer\/","title":{"rendered":"VueScan, ‘Spinx’, George Mackay Brown and RIP Jeffrey Archer"},"content":{"rendered":"
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I’d like to give a quick shout out to Ed Hamrick of ‘VueS<\/span><\/strong><\/a><\/span>can’<\/span><\/strong><\/a> software. When I first started scanning in 1995 I was using a Canon, then changed to an Epson Scanner\/Printer and all the time the supplied software met my needs. I could scan and get it to paste directly into Paint Shop Pro which I still use, in fact I’m still running the 1998 version as I don’t find I need all the bells and whistles of later updates. In around 2019 I changed Scanner\/Printer again and the old software no longer ran and the new involved a lot more stages than before so I looked around and found ‘VueScan’ When I got into it I found I could almost do the same as before but it took just one more stage which I could accept BUT on a recent update my ability to preview, crop, copy and then paste into Paint Shop as a cropped image disappeared, I got the whole scanned area, not just the cropped part. I contacted Ed at ‘VueScan’ expecting to be told why do you do what you do, just add scan but that was one more stage I didn’t need. Thankfully Ed took it on board and after a couple of failures I am now pleased to say I am now back to a working edition as I use it so once again thanks to Ed for taking my request so seriously.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n

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This weeks random title is for ‘Sphinx’<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/a> by Robin Cook of which I have three editions, none with particularly inspiring covers. It was made into a film with Lesley-Ann Down in 1981. I’ve not read it or seen the film so I can’t pass comment although I have been to Egypt and seen the Sphinx when there was a lull in the rioting so instead of hoards of tourists there was just a few and we were outnumbered by the locals selling tat.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n

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I picked up a couple of Piccolo titles<\/span><\/strong><\/a> with a Scottish theme as they are set in the Orkneys. They are both by George Mackay Brown and I don’t think they have ever been read and they both have covers by Paul Slater<\/span><\/strong><\/a>. George Mackay Brown (17\/10\/1921 to 13\/04\/1996) was a Scottish poet, author and dramatist with a distinctly Orcadian character. He is widely regarded as one of the great Scottish poets of the 20th century. He also wrote ‘Six Lives of Fankle the Cat<\/span><\/strong>‘ <\/em>for children but this was not published by PAN but by Chatto Windus.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n

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The news of<\/strong> Jeffrey Howard Archer, Baron Archer of Weston-super-Mare, passing at the age of 86 last week reminded me of the time I met him in Foyles bookshop at PAN’s 70th birthday bash where he was presented with a ‘Golden Pan Award’<\/span>\u00a0<\/strong> for selling over a million copies of ‘Only Time Will Tell’<\/span><\/strong><\/em> I didn’t really have that much time to form an impression but I do like the quote from Sheridan Morley who is supposed to have said “At the interval I went to the toilet, and there beside me was Ringo Starr. He asked if I knew this Jeffrey Archer bloke. I said everyone in Oxford was trying to work out who he was. Ringo said: “He strikes me as a nice enough fella, but he’s the kind of bloke who would bottle your piss and sell it” <\/em><\/span><\/strong>Having sold over 320 million copies of his books worldwide he must have been doing something right, maybe I’ll get around to reading one someday.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’d like to give a quick shout out to Ed Hamrick of ‘VueScan’ software. When I first started scanning in 1995 I was using a Canon, then changed to an Epson Scanner\/Printer and all the time the supplied software met my needs. I could scan and get it to paste directly into Paint Shop Pro […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tikit.net\/panfans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18831"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tikit.net\/panfans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tikit.net\/panfans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tikit.net\/panfans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tikit.net\/panfans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18831"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.tikit.net\/panfans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18831\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18888,"href":"https:\/\/www.tikit.net\/panfans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18831\/revisions\/18888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tikit.net\/panfans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tikit.net\/panfans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tikit.net\/panfans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}