Getting my USB Scanner up and running

Getting my scanner up and running was a chore. I spent a good couple of hours visiting various websites and perusing the ubuntu forums looking for any clues that would help.
I pieced together a variety of tips and tried implementing them one by one without success. After numerous tries, I just about gave up hope when I somehow managed to get my scanner to work.
I hope the following instructions will help others in a similar situation. From what I've pieced together, these steps should work with various scanners, as long as you have the particular firmware file for your own scanner. I own an Acer 640BT scanner and used the firmware file named U190V044.BIN

Using Synaptic Package Manager, I installed the scanner software. I installed sane, xsane, and libsane.

I downloaded the firmware file for my Acer 640BT scanner.
I installed it to the following directory:
/etc/sane.d

(I had previously tried to install it in this directory without success
/usr/share/sane/snapscan/)

I opened terminal and ran this command:
sudo gedit /etc/sane.d/snapscan.conf
I edited snapscan.conf to look like this:

#------------------------------ General -----------------------------------

# Change to the fully qualified filename of your firmware file, if
# firmware upload is needed by the scanner
#firmware /usr/share/sane/snapscan/U190V044.BIN

# If not automatically found you may manually specify a device name.

# For USB scanners also specify bus=usb, e.g.
/dev/usbscanner bus=001
firmware /etc/sane.d/U190V044.BIN

I commented out the first firmware line with a # symbol and pointed the file to my firmware file for my USB scanner

I saved the file and rebooted the system. I ran Xsane Image Scanner found under
Applications->Graphics->Xsane Image Scanner
I also installed the KDE scanner software called Kooka which is another great program.
I am now also able to scan an image directly into Gimp using either xsane or the Gimp scanner plugin Quiteinsane and edit it directly before saving.

Hopefully this helps some people who are having similar troubles with configuring their scanners. While trying to get my scanner working, I made several other changes to files that I haven't documented here, so let me know if this info is helpful or not. I may edit this post with more accurate information if readers comment here.
Post your comments, stories and questions related to your particular scanner so that more people can benefit from this post.