The Paperless Project produces some positive results

Posted on October 26, 2006
Filed Under All, Technology, Gulker labs |

A while back we decided to do something about the drifts of paper that tend to collect, over and over again around gulker.com’s ‘World HQ.’ No sooner do we dispatch one batch of mailed and faxed documents, but another one seems to spontaneouly grow. Finding these documents, on those rare but vital instances when some communication from the bank or insurance company or DMV or house remodel contractor is important, can be a nightmare of looking through drawers, filing cabinets and boxes in the garage. This is especially true when the documents are some months or years old.

So we started the Paperless Project a few months ago. Everything that comes in that isn’t already a PDF or email or other electronic file format (which all get converted to PDF) now goes through a fast Fujitsu ScanSnap, then onto a Mac Mini where it’s processed by Adobe Acrobat Pro 7 (for OCR, rotation issue setc. ) and then into a collection on the HD that’s managed by yep (’iPhoto for PDF’). The whole thing is backed up automatically to an array of inexpensive NAS drives by ChronoSync and Apple’s Backup (not really paranoid, just evaluating both products).

So today we discovered that one of the many pieces we ordered for our in-progress master bedroom/bath remodel - a French door from Kolbe & Kolbe in Wisconsin - had arrived without its hardware. A quick search on ‘remodel’ in yep produced the confirmation-of-order form (a fax) complete with all the names, phone numbers and order details that I needed to get the ball rolling on replacing the hardware. If this had been a piece of paper I would likely still be sifting through folders trying to put my hands on this 6-month old document, amidst hundreds that have rolled in during the time frame…

Comments

4 Responses to “The Paperless Project produces some positive results”

pauldwaite on October 26th, 2006 3:14 pm

Woo hoo! Always cool when the effort up-front pays off, and you get the brain reward you would have got from laziness, plus a large, pleasantly smug feeling as you realise just how much you rock
cg on October 26th, 2006 4:25 pm

I’ll be doing my taxes with this system this year… keep your fingers crossed…
gfbird on October 26th, 2006 8:15 pm

Oooo . . . a Wisconsin screw-up? Oh well, there was McCarthy and the current Pack . . . I won’t go on.

No hardware included, but paid for? Nothing to replace . . . just a packing error? Hope it’s all clear.
cg on October 27th, 2006 6:27 pm

Ya gotta love it when a home-brew geek project actually does something useful…