Recently I have been mulling over the possibility of commuting to New York—owing to a hazy future at my current employer. Whether or not I am ready to trudge there and back every day of the week is still an open question, but the siren song of the city has its draw. With such a [...]

Several weeks ago I was sitting at the dining room table with a family friend going through a stack of documents and letters. Her husband had passed away suddenly some weeks before, and I was doing the best I could to help her untangle the paperwork and understand what was what. This unfortunate scene made [...]

Like most people who are trying to archive reams of paper, the one reliable tool I always turn to is Adobe Portable Document Format. I trust my digital life to PDF. Almost everything I scan and most documents I write eventually end up squirreled away somewhere as PDF documents. Have you ever considered just how [...]

I have always been a big fan of HowStuffWorks, with their detailed in-depth articles describing such disparate topics as manual transmissions and money laundering. Anyway, author Diane Dannenfeldt has written a lengthy article on How Paperless Offices Work, giving ample coverage to myriad aspects of the topic: Introduction to How Paperless Offices Work Benefits of [...]

The basic tool required to bridge the gap between the carbon-intensive paper document present and the greener electronic document future was invented in 1993 as a way to streamline communications between publishers and printers. Today, the humble PDF file is the file format of choice for “final” electronic documents. Properly created and deployed, PDF alone [...]

Last week I wrote about some different ways that you can get around having a photo printer in your home. Indeed, the ubiquitous photo inkjet printer tends to introduce frustration in a life that has no pressing need of more. In this article, I address the photo printer’s more formal companions: laser printers and their [...]

Organize Your Digital Life: How to Store Your Photographs, Music, Videos, and Personal Documents in a Digital World by Aimee Baldridge If you are looking for step-by-step checklists and good solid advice about putting your digital life in order, then this book is for you. The author covers a very broad swath of digital media, discussing [...]

We all have them tucked in some corner of our house—a stack of old greetings cards that we can’t bear to throw out because of the sentimental value. As a paperless warrior, you have at your disposal the tools to reclaim those corners of your home, with no guilt at all! On my last birthday, [...]

You know all of those useless ad-filled pages that come out along with the one sheet you really needed? How about that last page that has nothing but the web site’s copyright statement or FAQ links? I just took a look at a product called GreenPrint that helps you print exactly the pages you want [...]

From time to time I catch myself focusing on dealing with paper after it is in my home, rather than finding ways to slow the flow. Here’s an interesting list of general greenness, reducing the total amount of paper in the home: 19 Tips to go Paperless at Home I like the ideas in Julie’s [...]