Charlotte’s grandfather passed away shortly after Christmas, 2009, and left behind a treasure trove of family photographs. Most aren’t organized and need long term preservation. This prompted us to finally purchase a scanner, which we had been thinking about for some time.

My wife made the purchase – an EPSON Artisan 710 printer/scanner. It’s getting harder and harder to find a solo scanner, and this one had Ethernet and WiFi built in. Once we got it setup, I found out the real joy: you can scan over the network. No need to be plugged in anymore. Just bring your laptop over to the scanner (so you can get your grubby mitts on the flatbed), and start saving old pictures from decay.

It does an excellent job as a scanner, BTW. We haven’t tested the printing aspects of it yet, but it does take 6 ink cartridges, and a full set of high capacity ink is less than ¹⁄₂ the price of the scanner, which is rare these days.