A paperless life
The long-heralded paperless office hasn’t really arrived so far. How about our personal records? How much of our life can we commit to digital record-keeping? Is it safe? At Computerworld, Mike Elgan describes his efforts to go paperless:
As a kind of “lifestyle experiment,” I’ve been trying to completely eliminate paper as a data storage medium for the past six months. I’ve gotten rid of most check-based bill paying, moved most of my reading to digital forms, nearly stopped paper mail from coming to my house, eliminated paper records and nearly purged all paper-based files. I’ve gotten into the habit of literally photographing anything with words on it that I might want to remember later, and uploading them on a service I’m going to tell you about.
I’m now ready to declare my experiment a success.
I’ve also eliminated a lot of paper records. I pay most bills electronically and have a number of accounts on the Web. How about you? Do you use online banking or pay bills online? Do you worry about security?
About security, Elgan says:
The biggest objection many have is that online records may be less secure. But that’s only true sometimes and potentially. Paper records aren’t all that secure, either. If you’re like most people, you rely on a single paper copy of, say, receipts for taxes. Those are potentially vulnerable to theft, loss, fire and other hazards. If you’re careful about encryption and good password management, and retain redundant copies of your records electronically, you can maximize security with all-digital records.
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I was sold on the paperless lifestyle when I first found a scanner that could devour entire books in short order.
Not all of the things Mike talks about work for everyone. For example, having my mail sent to Earth Class Mail would be neat, but pricy.
My biggest concerns are centered around backups—making sure that the digital documents could never possibly be lost.
Anyway, I like the paperless lifestyle enough that I blog about it:
http://paperjammed.com