Using My Fujitsu ScanSnap

Merlin Mann posted on how people are using their scanner to "go digital". I put up an extended comment explaining how I do it which I'll reproduce below.

First of all, the Scan Snap is an excellent product. it reads both sides of the page and is really fast. It is perfect for scanning documents. It is not good for quality photograph scans.

Anyway, my desk space is small so I actually keep my ScanSnap on a shelf. As I go through my week I keep a small file of things to be scanned. About once a week. (Often while watching football on Sunday) I will pull down the ScanSnap and plug it in. I then mount an encrypted sparse image disk on my Mac. ScanSnap knows to save its images in my “To Sort” folder on that drive. I just go through and scan everything.
Once it is done scanning (usually takes me about 10-15 minutes), I put all the paperwork into a separate folder to shred and keep the few pieces I may need to keep (like an invoice ticket to mail with a check). I then open Path Finder and open the side tab in “preview” mode. I click each image and then rename it in Pathfinder, which is really easy and fast. I then copy the images to their appropriate folders on the sparse image. Since I tag it all (later) I don’t get real particular. I keep a folder for each month and a few for other obvious things such as insurance, banking, family, etc..

Finally I open up Yep which knows to only index documents on my Sparse image. It is really easy and fast to select all untagged documents and assign tags to them. Finally I unmount the secure disk image and copy it onto the network (backup).

The whole process probably takes about an hour a week. In my opinion the time is well worth it. The documents are backed up in multiple locations and very easy to access. My insurance guy recently emailed me asking for some documents. I had a return email to him in 5 minutes with the 4 documents he needed. It scared the hell out of him.

Fire Update - All is Good

I was up all night. At one point the embers were raining down on my home like raindrops and there I was, like Don Quixote, using a garden hose to put them out. Anyway, I believe we are out of danger. Thanks to everyone for their warm wishes and kind thoughts.

Fire Watch at MacSparky HQ

The Orange County fires are now getting disturbingly close to our home. I had Court this morning but came back home afterward . . . just in case. We are pretty sure we’ll be fine but School is closed. They are evacuating but haven't got to my street yet. We’ll keep you posted.

email Security

I stumbled upon a great MacWorld article about email security. One of the points they make is how easy it is to run SSL security using Mail.app and a .mac account. I've been using SSL for some time and it does make me breath a bit easier considering how often I communicate with client via email. I've also routed all of my mail accounts through my .Mac account so everything is nice, clean and secure.

Anyway, you can check out the article right here.

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Review - Default Folder X

One problem I used to have with my Mac was the universal save dialogue box. It looks pretty, but often I found myself making lots of clicks just to get a file in the right place. I wanted it to be more intuitive and less work. I looked around and eventually found Default Folder X. I’ve been using it about four months now and, frankly, I couldn’t imagine not having it.

Default Folder X rewires the OS X save dialogue with some very nice extra features. Once you install Default Folder X, you have a new save dialogue box that includes a series of buttons down the right side. The first button is the default folder icon which allows you to specify a directory for saving items that is customizable by application. Gone are the days of starting in the “Documents” folder and drilling to fine your ultimate destination. Default Folder does the work for you. The button below that roughly equates to the “my computer” icon in the windows save box. It gives you a global view of everything on your system. Since this is duplicated in the left column, this is the button I use least often.

Next are buttons for favorites and recent locations which are very helpful. For instance I have a “review” folder saved as one of my favorites. As I write reviews I can then get them saved much faster. Likewise the recent folders icon is helpful when I’ve got my head down on one project. For instance, I spent several days this week putting together a keynote presentation for a case I’m working on. I had pdf, image, and document folders I was accessing constantly. The recent folders button kept me right on track.

Also, there is a “Finder” button that allows you to save documents to open finder windows. This again is really helpful. Quite often I have a finder window open related to whatever I am doing. Rather than drilling for it, Default Folder gets you there in one click.

On the bottom of the Default Folder save dialogue is a spotlight comment field that gives me no excuse to not start using spotlight comments more often except, of course, inherent laziness.

In addition to the new save dialogue, default folders installs menu bar and dock icons. I’m a doc minimalist so I didn’t keep Default Folder X there but my menu bar is loaded up and one more icon just makes the party bigger. This icon gives me access to the Default Folder shortcuts outside the save dialogue along with preference setting that can include multiple favorite sets and keyboard shortcuts.

At $34.95, Default Folder X is not cheap. When I first downloaded the 30 day trial, I wasn’t sure that I would end up keeping it. However, before the trial period was over, I knew I’d be paying for this one. Give it a test run yourself but be warned, you will probably end buying it. You can find out more about Default Folder X at their website.

You can listen to this review right here and see my screencast of Default Folder X right here.

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Preparing for Leopard Tips

MacWorld has a nice article with several upgrade tips that hadn't occurred to me. I'm not going to go crazy but I probably will do several of these tips.

Leopard - The Movie

Apple released a nice tutorial showing off some of the Leopard features. I finally got a few minutes to watch and it looks good. I initially thought that TimeMachine would not get used since I have a pretty good SuperDuper system in place. However, it looks very slick. Can anyone say redundancy?

The cosmetic stuff in Mail also looks good. It will make every email you send one big fat Mac add.

Check it out.

Screencast 8 - Default Folder X

Screencast 8 demonstrates Default Folder X which replaces the native OS X save dialogue. The developer agreed to a $5 discount for the next week. Details are in the screencast. Check it out!

 You can Download it Directly Right Here

or better yet subscribe in the iTunes store

Help Wanted - Google Wizard

I'm calling out to the MacSparky community for help. Since moving the server to Dreamhost things are running really smoothly with one exception. I am dead to Google. According to my wordpress stats I have not got a single referral from a google search since relocating. I used to get about 100 search referrals a day and now its nothing, nada, doughnuts. I've written Dreamhost, Google, and a few of my web wizard friends and everyone is baffled. If anyone has an idea, please write me.

300+ Leopard Features

Between dealing with a large case at the office and other challenges, I've had very little time to look at all the new information concerning Leopard. This weekend I do hope to take a good look at the apple preview pages including the list of 300 new features. I only spent 10 minutes looking at it this morning but it looks pretty thorough.