Dear LazyWeb:
My wife and I have something like 4000+ photos that we need to scan (at high resolution) and archive, and be able to logically manage.
My platform choice is Mac. I will likely be purchasing a Mac Mini to dedicate to this task (2GHz model). I do not want to afford a Mac Pro, as awesome as it would be to have such a powerhouse in my home. I already have an Epson 2400 scanner, and would prefer to not have to replace it.
I have no idea what software to use for the resulting photo collection. I’d like something better than simple files on the disk, and am considering either Lightroom or Aperture, even both of those seem aimed more directly at digital photography.
I would like a simple workflow, if possible, that doesn’t rely on me naming the images. Tagging and notes/comments would be required.
Can I get away with Lightroom or Aperture, and whatever scanner software I can install for my scanner? Do I need something different?
Can Lightroom or Aperture store images on an external disk (which may not always be connected?) I’ve got plenty of storage already on my home network.
UPDATE:
Hardware will likely end up being a new 13″ MacBook, instead of a Mac Mini, as my wife needs a replacement for her iBook anyway, and the new MacBook has way more power than the mini. This definitely necessitates the ability to store all the images on external storage, ideally via a network (SMB/CIFS) share.
No soda after noon.
I really need to stop drinking so much soda.
OOOOO…..shiny…..I just discovered that I too have the keys with which to unlock this site. Nifty. My husband must love me or something. *smirk*
Now if only I felt like I had more to say…..and more time. I’m stealing this time from work. SSSHHHH….don’t tell anyone!
I do have an oddity though…..okay, it’s odd to me. Maybe not to people who pay attention to how such things work, but it’s odd to me. I joined meetup.com because Leticia wanted me to. I finally put up a pic last week or so. It’s probably my newest POIC (point of internet contact). (I love making up acronyms.) For some reason, that page is the one that comes up if you use google to look for me by first name and maiden name. Not anything else (at least on the first page of hits). Just that one. Even though it’s under my full last name. As are other things. This is very strange to me.
Do I like that random people from my past have been finding me? I don’t know. I suppose it shows that they care enough to try. 
And I like finding out what people are up to. It’s just odd HOW they find me. Especially when my email address hasn’t changed since I left Bradley. Odd.
I am finding myself simply not caring about the fact that this site is using the default WordPress theme.
That is all.
I have, for some time now, run my own Internet domains for purposes of having what are essentially vanity email addresses and web sites. The longer I’ve done this, however, the more picky I’ve become about what kind of service I have my email stored on. I use, primarily, IMAP to access my mail, but I do on occasion require a good web mail client for those times when I don’t have my own computer(s) available to me.
In the past, I have made due with borrowed capacity on other people’s servers, running my mail through UW IMAP or Dovecot IMAP or even Courier-IMAP. All three are very capable, stable IMAP servers, though I’ve had the most reliable mail with Courier over the years. For a web front-end, if there’s been one, it’s usually been either SquirrelMail or IMP. Both are serviceable, though SquirrelMail tends more towards the no-frills just-get-me-my-mail-please approach, whereas IMP has tried for a long time to be a flashy, high-class webmail package. Neither one was really good enough, in my eyes, but then again, I’m tough to please for web apps.
The most important thing of all for me for email is reliability and stability. After that, I look at things like “how hard is it for me to manage” and “does it also make my wife happy?”. It’s on this third point that I started becoming restless with the options I had available to me, and started looking with some envy at Gmail. Zimbra, too, was under serious consideration, but it’s a heavy enough application for a server that I could not simply toss it on someone else’s server when I was already getting access for free.
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