Scanning and storing books on Google Drive
Off With Its Head!
Armed with a Chinese guillotine and a scanner with an automatic document feeder, Mike Schilli gives his books some special treatment, courtesy of Google Drive, which offers 5GB of storage space – room enough to start an online PDF collection.
Some publishers are still wary of converting to digital books, although the trail was blazed long ago. But, who relishes the prospect of carrying around pounds of reading material on vacation, especially with excess baggage costing a fortune? And, why fill your shelves at home with dust-catching books that you might not even look at until your next move?
Admittedly, I've had my shelves at home filled with unread printed books for many years – and I'm not really interested in re-purchasing the digital formats, all the more so because most of the older works will probably never appear in digital editions. This is what prompted me to purchase a US$ 400 wonder scanner by Fujitsu. The second device is purely mechanical and goes by the Jacobin name of guillotine: a paper cutter weighing approximately 40 pounds (US$ 150 on eBay) that lets me separate books of up to 600 pages from their sleeves and bindings (Figure 1).
[...]
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
US / Canada
UK / Australia
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
Linux Kernel Project Releases Project Continuity Document
What happens to Linux when there's no Linus? It's a question many of us have asked over the years, and it seems it's also on the minds of the Linux kernel project.
-
Mecha Systems Introduces Linux Handheld
Mecha Systems has revealed its Mecha Comet, a new handheld computer powered by – you guessed it – Linux.
-
MX Linux 25.1 Features Dual Init System ISO
The latest release of MX Linux caters to lovers of two different init systems and even offers instructions on how to transition.
-
Photoshop on Linux?
A developer has patched Wine so that it'll run specific versions of Photoshop that depend on Adobe Creative Cloud.
-
Linux Mint 22.3 Now Available with New Tools
Linux Mint 22.3 has been released with a pair of new tools for system admins and some pretty cool new features.
-
New Linux Malware Targets Cloud-Based Linux Installations
VoidLink, a new Linux malware, should be of real concern because of its stealth and customization.
-
Say Goodbye to Middle-Mouse Paste
Both Gnome and Firefox have proposed getting rid of a long-time favorite Linux feature.
-
Manjaro 26.0 Primary Desktop Environments Default to Wayland
If you want to stick with X.Org, you'll be limited to the desktop environments you can choose.
-
Mozilla Plans to AI-ify Firefox
With a new CEO in control, Mozilla is doubling down on a strategy of trust, all the while leaning into AI.
-
Gnome Says No to AI-Generated Extensions
If you're a developer wanting to create a new Gnome extension, you'd best set aside that AI code generator, because the extension team will have none of that.