Category Archives: BRCS Freeware SIG

Post related to the Boca Raton Computer Society freeware special interest group.

TWAIN (Not Mark)

Posted on by

Last night I attended the Boca Raton Computer Society, Inc. (BRCS) Hardware / Software SIG. (http://brcs.org/)

One of questions, related to scanners, was: Can someone explain what TWAIN is?

There was no internet access during the SIG, so it could not be looked up. There was a lot of speculation, the consensus being it is a machine language, used to communicate between a scanner and the PC.

I ran a Google Advanced search: what is twain -mark -mark site:.com

Here are some of the results that made some sort of sense to me:

http://www.worldstart.com/tips/tips.php/1209

http://graphicssoft.about.com/od/glossary/f/twain.htm

http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/0,,sid9_gci213232,00.html

I also found the following through Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TWAIN; they are a little more technical:

http://www.twain.org/

**************

I hope this helps anyone needing more knowledge about TWAIN.

If you know of any other information, that may help in understanding TWAIN and what it does, please leave a comment with a link below.

Recording Internet Radio – Podcasts – Media Players

Aside

Just some quick information:

Last night I was at a dinner for Boca Raton Computer Society, Inc. (BRCS) and a couple of us started talking about recording internet radio broadcasts from Argentina, also during the discussion the idea of podcasts of the same shows, as well as media players, came up. Below is what I could find with some real quick searches on Google and Ask.com, for some free and or inexpensive solutions:

Recording internet radio links: (found at ask.com by searching for “how do i record internet radio broadcasts?”

http://radio.about.com/od/recordstreamingaudio/a/blrecordinghub.htm

http://www.cnet.com/1990-7899_1-6306524-1.html

Podcasts from Argentina:

I do not speak the language so I do not know how much this link to a search on ask.com will do, but give it a try:

https://www.ask.com/web?qsrc=2106&o=ffx&l=dir&q=how+do+i+find+podcasts+from+Argentina+radio+stations%3F&adt=0

Free Media Players:

VLC Media Player

Link to it’s site: http://www.videolan.org/

Gizmo’s Freeware Review (Media Players):

http://www.techsupportalert.com/best-free-windows-media-player-replacement.htm

These should get you started. Check them out and enjoy yourself.

A Free PDF Writer Tool

Posted on by

I needed a PDF virtual print driver for my Vista Home Premium personal laptop, so rather than just downloading the new version of PDF Creator, the tool I have used for years on my xp machines, I decided to see what else might be available.
During my research I came across the Best Free PDF Writer post at http://www.techsupportalert.com. After reading this post, I decided to try Bullzip PDF Printer, see http://www.bullzip.com/products/pdf/info.php for more information.
Some of the key features, according to the post, Last Update: Mon, 04/13/2009 – 15:24 — dave007, are quoted below:

Key features of Bullzip PDF Printer include:
The ability to password protect your pdf files (only PrimoPDF and PDFCreator also had this ability)
The ability use either 40 or 128 bit encryption on the file (only PDFCreator also had this ability)
The ability to add a watermark (PDF Creator had a limited ability to add watermarks)
The ability to append or prepend files (PrimoPDF and PDFCreator also had this ability)
The ability to choose different levels of output quality (All but CutePDF and TinyPDF had this ability)
The ability to add/change metadata (PrimoPDF and PDFCreator also had this ability)

So far I really like this, though I have not had time to really check out all the features.
If you are looking for a good free PDF writing tool, I suggest you check this one out.

Let me know what you think of it, should you decide to try it.