Topic awaiting preservation: cleaning a scanner

The glass surface of my scanner is pretty dirty. There are some finger prints and some dust on it. I've tried wiping it off, but it really doesn't seem to help much. Anybody have any good tricks for cleaning off a scanning surface?

Also, I think that the source of all this gunk on my scanner might often be my pictures. Is there a good way to clean them off before placing them on the surface?

Take some standard glass cleaner, and a cloth diaper. Spray the diaper with the glass cleaner, and use it to clean the glass. DON'T SPRAY THE GLASS ITSELF! You can use this technique on monitors as well. You can substitute paper towels, but diapers are usually softer. Clean diapers tend to yield better results than dirty ones.

my wife accidentally tossed a dirty one in the wash a few days ago, not a good mistake to make.

There is a new type of cloth out, a microfibre that has the consistency of a fine suede or chamois that is excellent for cleaning monitors with the non glare coating, takes 1/10th the elbow grease with these cloths. I'm sure it would do well on scanner glass as well.

Jason