less paper, no regrets, part 2

As with all systems, the results reflect the [lack of] planning that went into them. Since I had goals greater than just getting rid of all the paper, the next step was defining what exactly I wanted. In a nutshell, I wanted all my paper documents more accessible (ie, find them faster on the computer than I could in the file cabinet), easily backed up, and securely stored. I also want a ‘system’ in place that makes it easy to prevent the accumulation of paper in the future. The following feature list embodies my goals:

1. Tagging:  Tag documents with metadata about them. Examples:
2009, Receipt, Gas, Shell
2009, Receipt, Climbing, Trekking Poles, REI
Statements, Investing, Vanguard, 401k

2. Custom Fields: places to store specific types of data. For example, dates, prices, expense category, pay method, etc.

3. OCR: The files in the cabinet are orderly and it takes mere seconds to put my hand within an inch of the right document. But it might take 10 minutes to search through that file folder to find the document I’m after. Once scanned, each document is a PDF among hundreds of thousands of PDFs. OCR is the key to being able to find documents faster on the computer than in the file cabinet.

4. Spotlight searchable. Spotlight is the search technology built into my mac. It can index and search most document formats, including PDF. In order to be useful, the OCR results must be searchable via Spotlight.

5. Aggregation of numeric data: Perform summary math on contents of custom fields. Ie, when I select a group of receipts, automatically sum them all.

6. Backups: Make it easy to use standard backup tools to keep the documents safe.

7. Security: It must be easy to keep all the data reasonably secure. Fortunately, this can be easily accomplished on the Mac by creating a sparseimage and storing the document library on it.

8. Open & Future-Ready: The file format of all the documents must be an industry standard with multiple vendors supporting it. PDF is one such standard. In addition, once the documents are “archived,” I want the ability to manipulate them with external apps. For example, I may want to re-run the OCR against all my documents in a couple years when the technology has further improved.

Part 3 will explore the workflow used to achieve my goals.

Kayla-ism

After climbing Mt. Daniel this weekend, I was sleeping in. Kayla came bounding onto my bed and announced with great enthusiasm and pride, “Daddy, I put them DVDs on your nightstand so you can tear them up.”

After pondering this for a moment I determined what she really wanted was for the movie to be available on the Apple TV. I asked, “Oh, you want me to rip them?”

“Yes, yes, tear them up!”

less paper, and no regrets, part 1

Last year, our office bought a document scanner. Unlike every other scanner I had purchased or used, this thing was tiny. Its footprint on a desk is smaller than a piece of paper. It is designed specifically for turning pieces of paper into PDF documents. I had to try it. It scanned both sides of my paper in 3 seconds. One pass, both sides!

Such a gadget is very exciting because I have a lot of paper. I’m not a compulsive hoarder, but I do keep financial records longer than the minimum 7 years. Combine that with the documents retention required for our business and before long we had two 4-drawer file cabinets of documents. And a couple desk drawers. And the pile on Jen’s desk. And the pile in my hutch.

The prospect of making all that paper disappear helped me get over the resistance I had to parting with $400. So I purchased the SnapScan S510M (since replaced by the S1500M). While waiting for it to arrive, I started thinking about how I was going to organize the thousands of PDF files that would soon be residing on my hard drive.

I had nightmares of the days before iTunes when I had to painstakingly tag all my music by hand, and then organize the music files into directories so I had a slight chance of finding what I was looking for. I needed an iTunes equivalent for PDF documents. Google led me to ReceiptWallet, which has since become Mariner Paperless. It promised to be iTunes for documents, so I bought it. Instantly.

The SnapScan comes with several software packages: Adobe Acrobat Pro 8, CardIris, Abbyy FineReader OCR, and the SnapScan drivers.  With a large bucket of tools in place, it was time to do some planning.

To be continued…

On matters of life and death

While living in Texas, one of the few things I admired about the state was their use of the death penalty. One of the most powerful arguments for the death penalty is that ‘the system’ has fail safes in place and ‘no innocent person has ever been executed.’ Texas has shed innocent blood. The man’s fatal crime was being too poor to afford competent legal counsel. Can someone remind me why we still have the death penalty?

light in the tunnel

Mid-summer, when the economy was sitting in the doldrums, there was a tempest in a teapot regarding the economic stimulus. One side argued that a second stimulus was called for. The other had buyers remorse, wishing we hadn’t done the first one. I argued that we had done enough and the only missing ingredient was time.

Some time has passed, and things are looking up. It appears that Bush and Paulson’s $700 billion TARP program may actually turn a profit. And it’s not just TARP; the Fannie-Freddie rescue could turn a profit too. The good news doesn’t end there.

A friend recently asked, “Is it just me, or are other people also seeing a lot more job offers lately?” Apparently it’s not just our industry that’s perking up: “A monthly gauge of U.S. online labor demand soared in August at its fastest pace in four years, indicating steadier footing for nationwide labor demand…”

A recovery in the job market typically trails a recession by 18 months. And there’s still plenty of hurt left in the housing market, but it sure seems like the worst of it is behind us.

End of life counseling

Last year my step-father-in-law Bill died of Leukemia. Months later, Mitzi, his wife and my mother-in-law, died of colon cancer. What I think many people don’t know is that when medical personal arrive at a home, they have a legal  obligation to administer medical care. In these cases, that likely means attempting to resuscitate them. They both had terminal illnesses. Any further care would simply prolong their suffering.

After his remission period ended, Bill was ready to go. Being a doctor, he knew how his last days would play out. We discussed the matter and if he could have done so without legal consequences to his survivors, he would have opted to expedite the process. And while Mitzi wanted badly to live another 10 years, she did not want to spend her last 3 months literally starving to death. Protracting the process any longer than nature took would be nothing short of cruelty.

The last thing either would have wanted after their death was a squad of paramedics trying to resuscitate them (unwanted and unnecessary care), hauling them off to the hospital in an ambulance (more unnecessary care), and then storing them in the hospital morgue (more unnecessary care) awaiting their last wishes. To avoid that, Continue reading “End of life counseling”