So in my continued effort to make life easier and simplify my digital existence I have started the project to convert my filing cabinet. One of the downsides of adulthood, is the plethora of paperwork you are destined to deal with. Everything from bank statements and insurance policies, to boiler instructions and heating schematics.

So the first task was to identify what I was going to need and how it was going to work, the two obvious tools were a scanner and a computer! So I checked the HP website and found an updated software bundle for my HP OfficeJet 7210 Multifunctional device that were certified for MAC OS 10.5.x. Once installed on my MacBook Pro and MacBook Air the full functionality of the device was at my disposal. The next step was a little harder as I needed to figure out what my workflow was going to be before I could identify what software I was going to require. So I decided to go through my filling cabinet and review the contents. I needed to find out what kind of information I was working with and was actually quite a simple task. I think that PDF it going to be the preferred format as it can cope with both images and text, and if I had some Optical Character Recognition (OCR) to the process, should also be searchable.

The next consideration is security! I figure I have three types of data;

Type 1: Insensitive Data – This is data that is to all intense and purpose no use to anybody else but me, and includes items such as manuals and instructions, for example the Boiler manual, and the instructions for the hot water and control system.

Type 2: Sensitive Data – This is data that could be used by others and could compromise my personal security or be used to impersonate my identity, such as education and health records and official correspondence such as voting data and official correspondence.

Type 3: Confidential Data – This is data that could severely impact my personal security, financial well being, and could certainly be used to impersonate me or secure financial benefits in my name, such as bank and credit card statements.

No I use two online services for general data storage. The first is MobileMe and iDisk, the second is Evernote. Now I use iDisk to store items such as pictures and graphics (Usually for web design work) and general correspondence and reference material. Evernote I use primarily for reference material that I rarely use but consider to useful to throw away. Now I don’t see MobileMe and iDisk as a solution for storing any of these types of data, mainly due to the size restrictions. I do however think that Evernote (Which I under use drastically) could be a candidate for the first type of data (Type 1).

Now I just need to figure out what to use for the other two data types!