Scanfest is Coming!

It's hard to believe, but we're already nearing the end of the month of April, and you know what that means! That's right! Scanfest!

A little about last month's Scanfest and Spring Break Scan-a-thon: We tied with February's number of ten participants on Sunday, March 30th: Jasia, footnoteMaven, Colleen, Thomas, Donna, Sheri and Bonnie (both non-bloggers), Lee, Renee, and myself. As ever, we had a lot of fun! We decided we were all tired of the snow and going to visit Colleen in Arizona, using Bonnie's RV (which we dubbed the Scanmobile) and scan people's photos to pay for our gas to get there. Thomas was immediately dubbed Chef, as he is the one out of all of us that truly loves to cook (and does it well!). Yes, we get silly, but we also get a lot scanned! And it's a great way to really get to know one another. We also had two mini-Scanfests with smaller groups on Tuesday, April 1st and Thursday, April 3rd and caught up with people here and there on Windows Live Messenger during the week. I did get all the postcards in the Westaby-Lerfald collection scanned and hope to eventually get those all posted, one by one, on this blog, as time allows.

So, April's Scanfest will be held this Sunday, April 27th from 11 AM - 2 PM, Pacific Daylight Time. We welcome all readers to participate; you needn't be a blogger to join us. Here's what you need to get set up:

To join us, you'll need a Hotmail or Gmail account, and Windows Live Messenger downloaded to your computer (Mac users go here to download Microsoft Messenger for Mac). Although WLM states that it is compatible with Yahoo! e-mail accounts, we have had difficulty adding Yahoo! users to our chat conversation. If you don't have a Hotmail or Gmail account, it's very easy (and free) to set one up. Just go to the links in the first sentence of this paragraph. Once you have gotten set up, send me an e-mail (my address is found on this page) and I'll add you to our chat list. You'll receive an invitation message from me at my Hotmail address, which will be sent to the e-mail account that you've set up for Messenger (Hotmail or Gmail), and then you will need to verify that I can add you as a contact.

The second thing you need to do to prepare for scanning is go to Sally's website here and sign up for her free e-mail newsletter. This will then allow you to download her helpful information called 8 Blunders People Make When They Scan Photographs...and How You Can Avoid Them All. Then you will know how to set your scanner correctly to enable you to scan your items without damaging the originals or compromising the digital images you create.

I hope to "see" you there!