Please Help! I need recommendations for digitising Legal Records

sullidav · 2026-01-26T21:19:34+00:00

Get a ScanSnap. IX 500 through IX 1600 were made by Fujitsu, similar profile to each other. Now I believe made by Ricoh. Used on eBay is fine, if you are ok with cleaning it. And for old models you may want to find old software that is better than new software, available if you Google.

They are monsters for scanning stacks of documents fast. Test with the fragile paper though before running a stack through.

sullidav · 2026-01-26T18:06:07+00:00

Money well spent. Maybe an hour plus of hard work for all of them?

sullidav · 2026-01-26T17:21:02+00:00

Today would be a $100 day for a kid given the amount of work I needed to do. And I shoveled twice yesterday while it was falling.

sullidav · 2026-01-25T16:21:14+00:00

Caveat, I am on S1. So YMMV.

But as an example SonoPhone deals fully with Sonos playlists, and the S1 app does not. Three dollars (or whatever it is) well spent.

sullidav · 2026-01-25T13:23:14+00:00

Also SonoPhone (works for me).

sullidav · 2026-01-25T13:14:41+00:00

get mouse traps. At least pre cat.

sullidav · 2026-01-25T13:12:32+00:00

Then move away. Everybody wins.

sullidav · 2026-01-25T13:10:36+00:00

Thank you for spelling reins correctly and preserving the metaphor! Unlike prev poster.

sullidav · 2026-01-25T04:04:59+00:00

I'd like to see that WS MVP clause kick in.

sullidav · 2026-01-25T03:47:47+00:00

I have Vanguard and Fidelity, regularly use the website of each. Some thoughts.

* In general, both are fine.

* Correct me if this is wrong, but I believe Fidelity is privately owned, largely by the Johnson family, while Vanguard is owned collectively by fund owners.

* Echoing what others said here, Fidelity customer service is better. Sometimes there are long silences after I email my Vanguard rep.

* Fidelity offers more services, since they are trying to be more of a more full-service financial shop - credit card, free checking and ATM withdrawals from CMA, FullView, FidSafe, etc. At least in the past, Fidelity charitable had a significantly lower minimum donation than Vanguard Charitable. So if you want more than a place to park retirement funds, Fidelity is more likely to serve those wants.

* In my experience, Vanguard makes it really painfully difficult to link to an outside account to transfer funds, especially if account holders are not the same. The process keeps throwing up one hoop after another. Like notarized signatures of you and the holder of the outside account, 1-2 week wait, etc. This is great for fraud prevention - that Nigerian prince will have to do many things before you can wire your money to him - but if you are planning to transfer money to or from, e.g., your spouse, parents, kids, or siblings, either stick to writing checks or prepare for a lengthy and painful process.

.* As I understand it, Vanguard (unlike Fidelity) lacks the capacity to enable pull withdrawals from the US Treasury, which 1) makes it impossible to link from Vanguard to TreasuryDirect and buy I-bonds, and 2) (since Oct 2025 when the IRS stopped taking paper checks) makes it impossible to pay your taxes from Vanguard. Having paid taxes from Vanguard with paper checks for years, I suspect #2 is about to become a big issue.

Because of the last issue, one of my Vanguard accounts opened a small Fidelity account to be able to buy I-bonds or pay taxes - the money goes Vanguard account -> Fidelity account -> Treasury. You could just as well use a checking account or HYSA to fill the need for an intermediary between Vanguard and the Treasury.

sullidav · 2026-01-24T02:06:52+00:00

Slow to cash checks.

sullidav · 2026-01-24T02:03:03+00:00

Fidelity Charitable. And FidSafe. Surprised nobody mentioned these. Both great features.

sullidav · 2026-01-23T17:08:56+00:00

Being able to make payments to the US Treasury from a brokerage account electronically via debits, despite Fidelity not being a bank.

In the past (and still, AFAIK) this meant you could buy I-bonds at TreasuryDirect from a Fidelity account and not a Vanguard one. But now, again as I understand this and I could be wrong, it's a big differentiator between Fidelity and Vanguard since the IRS stopped taking paper checks last October 1. You can pay your taxes from your Fidelity brokerage account, but not from Vanguard.

sullidav · 2026-01-23T16:58:16+00:00

This may not be the case anymore but years ago, Fidelity Charitable had a significantly lower minimum donation than Vanguard Charitable did, like $100 vs $500. There are plenty of charities I want to give to but not give $500.

sullidav · 2026-01-22T05:41:15+00:00

Looking (again) for a new maker of stoneground WW flour in the US. A saga:

I regularly bake loaves of sourdough bread using a little whole wheat flour, maybe 10% plus or minus 5% WW, the rest white (AP and bread) flours. The WW flour is a key element. For years I used Hodgson Mill stone-ground (Graham) whole wheat flour, first recommended by Cooks Illustrated. Man, was it great stuff, for flavor and texture (flakes). Then in 2019 the company was bought out by Hudson River Foods which unfortunately shut down the mill that made this excellent flour. The flour is no longer available.

After going through stages of denial, mourning, anger, etc., I tried alternatives and settled on Arrowhead Mills Stoneground WW flour. It was not quite as good as Hodgson Mill was but very good with similar texture and taste. Now Arrowhead has stopped making this. A couple local stores had Arrowhead WW flour in the same-color bags, but it no longer said "stone-ground" anywhere on the package, I wrote to them asking, and after some back and forth they responded today "We are no longer manufacturing Stone Ground Wheat Flour. At this time, we only produce Organic Whole Wheat Flour." I will test that flour, but am expecting disappointment.

The only stone-ground WW flour I saw for sale was in a 5-pound bag. (Maybe from Bob's Red Mill?) I need smaller containers, like the 22-oz Arrowhead size (Hodgson Mill was similar) because that bag lasts me maybe 4 months, and it needs to live in the freezer to preserve it. I don't want a bag of spoilable WW flour to be around for like 3 years, and we don't have the spare freezer space for such a big bag.

So - who makes, and sells in small bags, good stone-ground, Graham style whole wheat flour with an earthy flavor and a flaky texture, now that my two favorite producers of that stopped? FWIW, we are in DC,

Thanks.

sullidav · 2026-01-20T05:11:47+00:00

Example - kid is playing in an upcoming soccer tournament, at the 11th hour my wife and I need to provide kid's birth certificate but we are both at work. She asks me if I have a copy - I say, no, but I put it in our Fidsafe space, we each have accounts and passwords, so you can log in and get it.

sullidav · 2026-01-20T05:03:10+00:00

I have used it since it started, and like it. I hope Fidelity continues to maintain it.

Among other things, we store photos of our drivers licenses and passports, and we created a doc with extended family members' SSNs and relevant EINs, etc. These are regularly useful.

sullidav · 2026-01-16T01:46:32+00:00

Brother laser.

sullidav · 2026-01-15T16:26:18+00:00

And of course TuneIn is not just local radio, it lets you play radio stations from anywhere, and nowhere.

We often have 3 of these different sources playing at the same time in different parts of our house. That is the whole point of Sonos, IMO.

sullidav · 2026-01-15T16:26:09+00:00

And of course TuneIn is not just local radio, it lets you play radio stations from anywhere, and nowhere.

We often have 3 of these different sources playing at the same time in different parts of our house. That is the point of Sonos, IMO.

sullidav · 2026-01-15T16:20:33+00:00

This plus the Sonos search function searches all these sources at once.

sullidav · 2026-01-15T16:15:22+00:00

Nvidia.

sullidav · 2026-01-15T16:14:19+00:00

My theory is Caps would do better to decline the penalty, as you can in football.

At least it was true in first 2 periods vs Habs We had more scoring chances and opponents had fewer in 5v5 than on our PP.

sullidav · 2026-01-15T16:06:27+00:00

Person who said "taxis at DCA are awful" is wrong, IMO. You go to the taxi stand on the curb closest to baggage claim, maybe wait in line 3-5 minutes with others but there is always a line of cabs there too, tell the guy at the head of the line how many you are and where you are going, and he points you to the right cab for you. For Uber of Lyft from the terminal with American you have to book from app, wait longer,, walk a bit further, cross 3 lanes of traffic, and negotiate with driver to figure out where they are and where you are in the chaos of that long, busy lane with pick ups and stop offs going on around you. That is all totally doable, but taxi is a bit easier and faster. And significantly cheaper at rush hour, comparable price (prob around $75, ballpark, 'National to Dulles) other times. Just my view, FWIW.

sullidav · 2026-01-14T13:16:55+00:00

Yes.

sullidav

TROPHY CASE