Archive for 'Going Paperless' Category

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Let the scanning begin

As comes the end of summer, so comes the beginning of scanning. Are those of us who partake in this endless task of scanning book after book mad? Insane? Bored? Without a social life? OK, possibly, HOWEVER, we have our reasons.

Right now I am sitting in an apartment, far away from family and friends, in a town where the only place to hang-out is Subway, and the word “wireless” has yet to reach the local’s ears.

I do NOT want to spend time that I’m at home around family and friends working longer than I need to on homework or studying, or huddled in my room with the scanner by my side on a Friday night. Scanning and OCR-ing my books allows me to be more productive during the school year. So what if it means I spend the day or two flipping pages and pressing scan. The benefits of 1000+ pages of searchable text, the freedom of studying whenever and where ever I get a chance, and extra mobility I gain by dropping about 30 lbs of books is WELL worth the effort.

Not only does scanning my books let me have more free time later, but that free time means that if I need to, I can spend more time studying when it counts. If I have a test that’s freaking me out, if I have homework due in thirty minutes, if I have a class that is INSANE, I can get more studying done in less time because I’m well organized and ready for action.

No, scanning doesn’t save you time in the long run (unless you have a really fast scanner), but it saves you time when it matters most. That’s all I’m trying to say here.

My next couple posts will likely be on scanning and digital books because that’s what I’m currently messing with. I have two books right now, one that’s 750 pages and one that’s 900 pages. I’m guessing with my way of scanning (OpticBook + Acrobat) that will be about 8-10 hours of work. Not too shabby, but still quite the effort ^_^.

Banks get it

You’ve seen this. Your bank’s likely advertised the wazoo out of switching to online statements. Many of your bills are likely offered online. I offer this as my explanation as to why, slowly but surely, tablet owners will get their wish.

They aren’t pushing paperless for our convenience. Business doesn’t work like that. Correct me if I’m wrong, but they figured out it’s a way to save money under the cloak of convenience.

SPC: Update

Yes, yes. I’ve been absent for a week now. But I have a good excuse: I was sick. I even made it to the Student Health Center, twice. Now that I’m almost better, I thought I’d better report in.

SPC: Week 7

I feel like I should have a them song or something. Maybe I’ll make a graphic for next week. In any event, week 7 is here! Things are going good, I’m pretty darn paperless. In fact, I’m paperless in every class I can be paperless in. The exception being Chemistry Lab and various worksheets in Calculus III that we do in class on paper. Excellent! But I want more, by next big hurdle in my SPC is to scan all my papers that I have for this semester and organize it all in OneNote. It should be tedious than anything and I hope to have it all done by Spring Break.

SPC: Week 6

Week six already wow. Things are going good. Week six was dedicated to making Tablet life a little easier. The big thing I did was switch the position of the Start Bar.It’s not a hard switch to make and it doesn’t even require some fancy program: just drag and drop. However, overcoming 10+ years of “Start Bar on the Bottom” is proving…interesting. I often catch myself glancing at the bottom right hand corner, desperately looking for time, only to see nothing. I’ve also tried to click on phantom buttons on the bottom. I hope that it should be second nature within a few weeks.

Paperless Challenge Podcast Finale! (Part 4)

This week, we conclude the paperless challenge discussion by answering your questions. In case you missed the previous segments, here are links to part one, two, and three.

Listen in as I discuss my 8-week paperless challenge with my guest, Tablet PC MVP, Tracy Hooten, of The Student Tablet PC blog. This podcast covers the various aspects of the paperless challenge, its inspiration, how we prepared for it, the tools and methodologies used and the lessons we learned. Most important, we answer the many paperless challenge questions posted to our blogs or sent to us by email over the last several months.

Paperless Challenge Discussion topics:
Inspiration and objectives for the paperless challenge
Preparation: hardware & software
Tools and methodologies
Surprising discoveries
Tips, tricks, and best practices
Lessons learned
Recommendations
And most important, answers to your questions

Our podcast ran longer than anticipated so I’ve split the podcast up into segments for your convenience.

Special thanks for Bruce Elgort and his clown friend, Brian Reed for contributing their time and talent to create the new intro and exit themes. Thanks guys!

Paperless Challenge Podcast #3

This came out during my "vacation," but Eric Mack posted part three of four of out paperless challenge podcast. If you haven’t already, go take a listen!

This week, we continue the paperless challenge discussion by answering your questions. In case you missed the previous segments, here are links to part one and two.

Listen in as I discuss my 8-week paperless challenge with my guest, Tablet PC MVP, Tracy Hooten, of The Student Tablet PC blog. This podcast covers the various aspects of the paperless challenge, its inspiration, how we prepared for it, the tools and methodologies used and the lessons we learned. Most important, we answer the many paperless challenge questions posted to our blogs or sent to us by email over the last several months.

Paperless Challenge Discussion topics:
Inspiration and objectives for the paperless challenge
Preparation: hardware & software
Tools and methodologies
Surprising discoveries
Tips, tricks, and best practices
Lessons learned
Recommendations
And most important, answers to your questions

SPC: Week 4 and 5

Week four was fraught with frustration, mostly involving OneNote 12 crashing in the middle of Calc class. I ended up using Journal and then copy and pasting my Ink back into OneNote. The price of beta testing I guess.

This week was better though, I ran the Office 12 checkup utility and while it didn’t say it found anything, OneNote 12 seems to be working better. While I was using Journal, I decided that I liked using the college-rule template better than graph paper template, so I switched that. Other then that, note taking has been pretty straight forword as it’s always been.

Ian-the-cartoonist’s interpretation of the paperless challenge

Thanks, Ian, for personifying our paperless challenge ^_^ (it does feel like this at times!!!).

Paperless Challenge Podcast, Part Two

Eric Mack has part two (of four) of our Paperless Challenge podcast up and ready for business.

Check out part one here, and catch up on the challenge here.

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