The Power of a ScanSnap Desktop Scanner and Digital Storage
Yes; there are people nerdy enough that they spend their time watching or making software or hardware tech reviews and videos: one thing I think EVERY retiree should have and do is a Fujitsu Scansnap scanner such as its “flagship” iX1600.
It can scan 50 pages, two-sided in 70 seconds. 8 by 11, credit cards, receipts, and photographs, to folders, its own filing system, or to the cloud, iCloud, Google Drive, Onedrive, and I trust Evernote.
Nancy Goodfellow Hunter is exceptionally good at filing and organizing; not so good at trying new things. That’s my job. I don’t think we should another piece of paper. We have 6 Scansnap Scanners at the office, and now that beauty here. Have a folder for every company, account, person, company, and subject, and scan directly there. With OCR, it is searchable, even if you don’t give the documents descriptive names.
We are trying to downsize our “stuff”; how great not to have metal filing cabinets and the rest. I can’t make myself throw out photographs, videos, video cd’s and the rest. but, I use Legacy Box, so I have dozens, soon to be hundreds of digital files and external hard drives of 5 terabytes, and even 8 terabytes, plus lots of cloud storage.
My problem? Organizing. Google photos is amazing as it will save by albums using face recognition and subject recognition; “race tracks”, “cars”, “Nancy Goodfellow Hunter” and each family member, and college friend have their own “album”.
My Dropbox is a couple of terabytes. I have video histories of my father, John B. Hunter II, his WW US Marine Corp Comrade, Beecher Rhodes, and his Cousin Winsome Lark Hunter. Straight from their mouths, oral history. I have a one-hour audio memoir of my Grandmother, Lolo Sarah (Filson) Hunter, born in 1884, with background “prompting” by my wonderful Aunt Elizabeth Wild Hunter, WW II US Army Nurse, who served on Tinian Island, the same as Beecher.
What treasures we have and need to preserve! So, whether it is a kind card you sent to a grieving friend, or one they sent to you, everything you save is a potential treasure, or give to someone in the future. Save it; scan it or just photograph it with your iPhone camera or scanner.
I haven’t signed into Ancestry for my last “hint”, but it has found a “Mary Witty” who it says I am a direct descendent of. She was born in 1700 which may make her and 8th grandparent. She lived 74 years, two less than I have right now.
So back to the ScanSnap iX1600. Don’t be sitting in assisted living, or an apartment, or even your retirement home, collecting paper that someone else has to come to throw it away. Keep moving into the modern world. Don’t let it leave you a “relic”, unable to use the tools the modern world gives us.
I mean no criticism of those who do, but tools are tools, and the best ones allow us to be better, more productive, people. Just don’t get addicted or learn to love porn or video gaming as your source of happiness.
https://youtu.be/YQ7wOoPy1Vk
This post was written by Burton Hunter