help me buy a scanner
 

I've decided to break down a purchase a scanner and have absolutely no idea what I am doing.

I'd like to scan family photos, old postcards (which I collect) and old magazine ads (also collected). Some of the ads are as big as 11" x 14", but mostly its pic and postcard range. Good clear images and colors are important to me.

I would be using my laptop to run the scanner. It's a Gateway Solo 9300 running a PIII, 1066 MHz with 256 MB RAM. It has a 20 GB hard drive that I'm barely using, so storage isn't a problem and most of the images would be burned to a CD. The laptop has 2 USB ports and one 1EEEE 1394 port in addition to the parallel port.

Any scanner experts care to make some purchase recommendations for me? It's greatly appreciated.

RRRR

I went with an HP scanjet and it works great.

details??

RRRR