How can you keep your data from being held hostage? Have you ever stopped to consider exactly how much information is permanently stored within your favorite applications, locked down to all but the most determined command-line commando? Perhaps the easiest way to explain what I’m getting at is by way of an example…

Work flow is inherent in the kind of work that we do when scanning, indexing, searching, filing, tagging, and backing up all of our documents, photos, music, and video. Once you are committed to digital media, you will find that you often need to cobble together different programs in order to do away with some of the tedious manual labor.

Last week I received my shiny new copy of iLife ’09 in the mail, and I found that the new Faces feature of iPhoto has turned out to be far more interesting than I had imagined based on the reviews. Once the application had finished searching through my library of thousands of family snapshots, I [...]

  A list of several useful hardware and software tools with which to arm yourself before you attack the file cabinet. When I first became interested in woodworking, I checked out several books on the subject from the library. Invariably, within the first two or three chapters, there was an illustrated list of desirable hand [...]

As soon as you begin storing your paper life on your computer, you are faced with the question of how to name your files. If you carefully select one system and stick with it, your entire document workflow will improve. Here are some thoughts to consider, and a suggestion or two.

The first time I searched for a random scanned document on my computer—and found it—I realized that this is one of the greatest benefits of the paperless home. This is one area where traditional paper lacks. And with the free products available today, there’s no need to be without. In this article, I describe two [...]

Many people think of going paperless as a means to reduce the volume of paper in their life, to reduce their environmental impact, or some other reason. I feel that the number one reason why I have gone this route is so that I can search everything effortlessly.

  My wife came to this country many years ago, and in general she seems to have been pleased with her choice. One day she made a rather telling comment: There are two things that I don’t like about this country—there are too many laws and there is too much paper! Those words have taunted [...]