The (more or less) paperless life
ryan / Thu, 08 Nov 2007 05:10:15 GMT
I know, I’ve been nerding out writing for 43folders a lot lately and promise to write a cranky post here at NRS soon. In the mean time, though, here is my latest how-to over at the folders.
It seems that many of us otherwise computer-oriented geeks have a surprising and earth-unfriendly confession to make: we love paper. Notwithstanding the entirely digital nature of my own trade, for example, I’ll freely admit that there is really nothing quite like the smooth glide of a mechanical pencil over a big sheet of crisp, white office paper to facilitate good writing and thinking.
I can’t plan out a new piece of software—or write an essay for that matter—without first messily scribbling my ideas out as mind-maps or rough user-interface sketches onto paper. My brainstorms are too messy and flow too quickly for the computer to be able to accommodate my chaos, yet that early disorder is essential to crafting the order and structure that will follow.
And yet I used to have serious reservations about this tendency to spoodge my thought process onto tree carcasses. It wasn’t until I finally learned how to get rid of paper, that I was able properly to embrace its use in my work.
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Hi Ryan,
I have just purchased the scansnap s510m based on your article at 43folders. It really is a great machine, however, I haven’t been able to install the finereader software… As you no doubt have had a lot of feedback from your article, I am just wondering whether you have heard any other instances where it hasn’t installed (it copies across ok, just does not launch!). (You are my last resory as the guys from abbyy have not responded to me…)
Thx, Tim
Hey Tim,
This is the first I’ve heard of this problem. FineReader has always worked fine for me, even through the upgrade to Tiger to Leopard. It might be worth giving AppleCare a call to see if they’d be willing to help.
Sorry I don’t have any more useful info. =\
Ryan