Pages tagged “paper”
20 Apr 2013
Digitising books
Having acquired a new document scanner, I chomped through most of the paper in my life, scanning receipts, letters from the bank and so on. It took a few hours. To really put my scanner through its paces, I wanted to digitise a few books. Here are a few thoughts and pointers for future reference. It’s particularly useful to digitise reference books that you might want to refer to. This is a matter of opinion, but I think they are better suited to the illuminated screen, random-access type of reading/research that things like iPads are so good at.
30 Mar 2013
Outsourced brainpower
I can’t remember when I first noticed TL;DR appearing on web pages. On the face of it, a TL;DR is a kind of “executive summary”, intended to save the valuable time of the reader. I wonder whether the rise of the TL;DR is a property of the medium - it’s harder to read extended passages on a screen than it is on paper - or of the reader. Demands on our attention are so intense and frequent, especially while online, that spending longer than few seconds reading something feels like a major commitment.
26 Mar 2013
Not quite paperless
Going paperless is all very well, but there are some bits of paper that it makes sense to keep, or that you have to keep for legal reasons. Documents relating to tax, receipts, utility bills (for when you have to prove your address), and so on - all have to be kept for x number of years. David Allen, of GTD fame, recommends filing material like this in an alphabetical system.
21 Mar 2013
A new toy for digitisation
I’ve crunched through scanning two carrier bags full of paper since getting a new Scansnap ix500 a few days back. The scanner is so quick that the rate-limiting step was not digitisation, but staple removal. Fujitsu should include branded staple removers with their machines.
01 Jan 2013