Web Worker Daily

“Paperless Office.”

That has a nice ring to it. But is it really attainable for anyone other than those who can get obsessive about scanning and shredding?

I’ve been trying to reduce paper, but in the process, I’ve felt a mental backlash that is driving me back to paper. Hey, I was one of the first folks to get a Palm early on, convinced that I would be replacing my paper organizer. I had one of the first Kyocera smart phone prototypes in 2000, seeing the possibility of getting rid of my paper address book, too.

My Failed Attempts at Paperless

When I got my 3-in-1 printer, I was gungho about having a scanner. I set out to rid my garage of the most onerous paper pile ever – magazines. I have boxes and boxes of magazines either with articles I’ve written or articles about me and my work in them. I haven’t been able to throw them out. But scanning them, while it seemed promising, has left me with a slew of disorganized scanned articles and once organized magazine piles in disarray.

Read the rest of this entry »

Ah, the dream of the paperless office. Pixily wants to help you make that dream a reality – by offering online document storage combined with a scanning service. Here’s the deal: in addition to letting you upload, store, and organize (via tags) existing PDF documents, if you pay for a Pixily account they’ll send you prepaid envelopes. Stuff the envelopes full of paper, send them back, and your documents will get scanned and added to your account.

Once they’re in Pixily, all of your documents become searchable PDFs. You can use their web interface to print, download, or view the documents in your account. You can also share them with others, on a limited-time basis (and those viewing a shared document don’t need a Pixily account). Pricing starts at $4.95 per month for 1000 pages stored, though you need to move up to the $14.95 per month to get the scanning service (50 pages per month; you can buy more). This may seem pricy, but they’re hoping you view it as a good tradeoff against the time it would take to do the scanning yourself.