Mark Dalton

So I was taking part in the recent Mac 20 Questions Round Table discussion and I mentioned my “Digital Filing Cabinet” project and promised to send over the links (Digital Filing Cabinet Part One & Digital Filing Cabinet Part Two) for the show notes. It was only when I came to sending them I realised that that I hadn’t updated the series with the latest developments, something I am now going to fix.

So in Digital Filing Cabinet Part Two I was using Evernote for storing scanned documents. Well, this was all going very well until it came to getting data back out. I had a PDF manual that I wanted to share with a Friend but Evernote export features are lacking to say the least. Only one export option is available and that is in Evernotes proprietary format, what use is that?

So I went searching for an alternative solution and found DevonThink from Devon Technologies. I settled on DevonThink Pro Office and what a difference it makes. The data is stored in its original format and can simply be dragged back out. You can even drag out complex folder structures and they are perfectly maintained. DevonThink supports OCR and all the documents are searchable. I could rave on and on about everything it does but to be honest I am still finding things that I didn’t know about. If like me you need a little more than Evernote provides I would strongly suggest that you head on over to the DevonThink web site and take advantage of the free trial offered.

In Digital Filing Cabinet Part Two I was also testing out Mail Tags & Mail Act-On from indev Software and found both products to do exactly what they described, but nevertheless thought they were more than I needed given that most of my inflow is not in the form of email. All in all I think I have achieved what I set out to achieve and this has been validated by the fact that I now have time to work on some of the other project’s that I have been wanting to get on with for some time, such as my “Family Photo Archive Project” (Family Photo Archive Project Part One & Family Photo Archive Project Part Two).

Okay so I had some holiday to use up before the end of March and it was a use it or lose it deal. The losing it part just wasn”t going to happen, so I took last week off and very productive it was too. When I purchased my house I was full of idea”s of what I wanted to do and for a couple of year”s it was full steam ahead, but then if I am honest I completely lost interest. Well, a year in India and I came back with a renewed vigor to sort it all out.

So last week was the first stage of the plan. I had already started to sort my study out, but this was mainly limited to the evening”s and was a pretty half hearted attempt as I was so tired when I came in. Well, last week, dedicated to the task I didn”t just clean the study out, I went through the bedroom cupboards and draws and sorted out all the old stuff that I am never going to fit into again. This done i set about speaking to gardeners, kitchen, and bathroom fitters. I started to investigate skip hire and trades people and now have a plan of what it is I want to do and how I want things to look.

It wasn”t all work however, I also managed to scan in the first batch of old family photo”s which are now available as part of the Family Archive Project (Linked to on the left hand side for future reference). I managed to catch up with a couple of friends and family, and of course generally relax (Lovely being able to just go out for a walk and see where you end up). All things I haven”t really done since coming back from India, well except for the walk as I never did really have a natural sense of direction.

One other thing I did a lot of was think about how much longer I can keep up the commuting to London. It really does take a huge chunk out of each day and without doubt is impacting my ability to have any real form of a personal life. The biggest problem is that the job market is pretty depressed at the moment and I do enjoy what I do and where I do it. More thinking to do I think!

Well, the next stage is the implementation, but I will keep you abreast of what”s going on and hopefully you will be kind with my choices. At the end of the day however it”s what I want so feel free to voice an opinion, just don”t expect me to agree.

So back in October I embarked on a project to simplify how I handle my personal paperwork (Digital Filing Cabinet Part One). Well since then I have made great progress and found the solution to be a lot less complicated than I originally thought.

At the end of my last post I was stuck with figuring out what storage options I needed for the three types of data I had.

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.

Well, after a lot of thought I arrived at the decision that as long as the data was encrypted and transmitted over a secure connection then I couldn’t see a major problem, and settled on two cloud computing solutions. Now don’t get me wrong, I understand fully the risks of storing data “in the cloud”, but have reasoned this is no less secure that storing it on a hard disk at home.

So what have I used? Well, for “Type 1″ type data I have selected Evernote and for “Type 2″ and “Type 3″ Data I have gone with DropBox. Evernote is ideal for this type of data as it indexes everything that is stored which means everything is searchable, even images. I have gone for the Premium service that allows you to upload 500 MB per month as I am loading quite a chunk of information at present. I have also using Evernote as a research tool for compiling list’s and research notes including Web Links, Emails, and Scanned pictures. DropBox on the other hand is cloud storage and I suppose a basic CMS / Document Management System. At present I am still working on scanning and copying the data to my DropBox account so am still using the free service, which provides 2 GB of storage. DropBox copies the data over SSL and encrypts all items using AES 256 before storing it on the back end, so I am relatively happy that it’s safe but am still taking a cautious approach at this stage. A great addition to DropBox is that it also provides version tracking so if you do amend a document you can easily revert should you need to. DropBox is also available from any computer either via a desktop client or their web interface. Unlike MobileMe and iDisk DropBox is super fast very reliable.

So that’s the storage sorted out, so I could scan a document in as a PDF and then move it to either Evernote or DropBox. There were a couple of other pieces of software I found made the process a whole lot smoother, however. The first was PDFPen from Smile On My Mac, which allows you to work with PDF documents, and the second was Hazel from Noodlesoft, which allows you to set up automated actions such as document renaming, moving, etc. This really is more about house keeping for me but I as I find myself performing repetitive tasks I do find it easier to configure Hazel to perform them for me.

So that’s in essence it for now! I am sure I will refine this over time and make small adjustments an improvements, for example I am now using OmniFocus from the Omni Group. OmniFocus is a “Getting Thing’s Done (GTD)” application, think advanced task planning. I am also testing Mail Tags & Mail Act-On from indev Software to help me integrate how I use email with the workflow, but for now I am not quite sure how I am going to do that as I don’t really work (at least from home) from my inbox.

Well, I have not been posting much recently for one simple reason, I haven’t been doing much. The last few weeks seem to have been nothing but work. Not that work has been really busy, well not any busier than normal, but I have just felt really tired, and by the time I get in have made myself some dinner all I feel like doing is vegging out in front of the TV.

Last Sunday I did however venture around to Mum & Dad’s for Sunday lunch, which was really nice, but we were all really tired and not much company. This week it has been really cold, it even snowed on Wednesday morning. The highlight this week was ordering and receiving a case for my iPhone. I opted for a case from Griffin via Amazon and I must say it’s just the ticket. I was starting to get a little worried about it getting scratched in my pocket.

Today I have decided, as it’s to cold outside, to have a day inside and catch up with some house stuff. I have been working on scanning all my old paper work onto the computer, and clearing out my “toy” cupboard and eBaying the items that may have some value. Not exactly the height of excitement but it needs doing.

Tomorrow I am off to Katrina’s with Mum & Dad for Sunday Lunch. It will be good to all be together and to see the kids again. As for next week its back to the grind, but I have promised myself that I will clean out the toy cupboard and the scanning work by Christmas, so will try and spend a few hours each evening working on these projects.

I am also looking into completing my Day Skipper sailing qualification next year and am currently looking into courses. The aim is to do the theory and then do the practical at the same time as Dad does is Competent Crew course.

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!