Re: filmscanners: real value? paperless office

[Richard <soho@eircom.net>]

>> From: "IronWorks" <ironworks@ameritech.net>
>> 
>> And we now have the paperless office that was predicted 5 years ago.
> 
> I've been working in the computer industry for 20 years and I'm afraid you
> are wrong.  

>The paperless office was predicted more like 15 years ago. :-)

And its been here in my office in Ireland for at least 3 years.

Every piece of paper, receipt, fax etc is scanned using a Visioneer
Paperport (very fast). As the items are scanned they come out the other side
and drop into a wastebin. (The latest version of Paperport is called Strobe
VX and scans in colour). The results are automatically OCR'ed and/or one can
embed keywords into the file. From the File menu I can then send the docs to
a MarcoPolo database, mine contains 20,000 items to date, one can also store
any file, Excel, Quark etc by printing to the database and even store the
original file if needed. I can search for any item whether it be the price
of a purchase, a VAT number on a receipt, a clients name or a description of
a product and up pops the scanned item in seconds. I can also search the
database remotely from any anywhere on the planet using TCP/IP.

I set up the same system for Radiohead's recording studio in Oxford. The
band and management team can access the database from the tour bus and run
their business on the road.

It's cheap, effective and I love it.


Regards

Richard

//////////////
 | @ @ ------->>> Richard <soho@eircom.net>
  C _) )           
   --- '           
 __ /