February 23, 2009 Comments Off
Happy February 22nd. I’ve just published an update to Home Document Manager (version 1.2009.2.23), and as usual, the app will update itself when an Internet connection is available.
What’s New?
- I’ve improved the document list (the bit in the middle of the app) to make it easier to move multiple documents around. Control+Click, Shift+Click and Control+A now work as they do in Windows Explorer.
- Some behind the scenes tweaks.
Any problems getting paperless this week? Get in touch! Happy shredding.
February 19, 2009 Comments Off
I love finding new uses for Home Document Manager, and I’m always intrigued to find out what our users are, well, using it for. A few weeks ago, I caught one of my guinea pig users (a friend) using it to organize her cooking recipes. She’s forever cutting out recipes from magazines and had previously stored them in a tin box. An aesthetically pleasing tin box, but a tin box nonetheless.
Despite my protests that it was never intended for use with recipes, she persisted, and it actually worked pretty well. She was able to organize them into folders and subfolders, and she could search through the documents to find similar recipes. For example, searching for ‘risotto’, returns a list of recipes for risotto dishes. Even more interesting, if she had, say some chicken, leek and peppers that needed using up, she can search for “chicken leek pepper” and find all recipes that would uses these ingredients.
She has a small, oldish laptop that she can put on a kitchen worktop when she wants, but be careful if you’re putting your brand new $2000 tablet on the same surface as food/oil/water/fire.
February 17, 2009 Comments Off
I appreciate paperless zealotry as much as the next scanner/shredder devotee. But try as I might, there are always some things that just work better as paper. This raises the question of what should be done with it. Whatever it is, it needs to be lightweight and very accessible.
I came across a post on Unclutterer today entitled “Creating a central binder for your home”
with just such a solution. If you go down this path, I would recommend sticking to the 5 categories as an upper limit. I think anything more and you’re on the slippery slope to paper clutter.
I think that any paper document should consider its existence as a privilege, not a right, so a periodical review of the wallet’s contents would be a good idea.
February 16, 2009 Comments Off
Morning folks. I’ve just published the weekend update for Home Document Manager (version 1.2009.2.16). As always, Home Document Manager will update itself whenever there is an Internet connection present. Thanks for all your feedback over the last week, keep it coming.
What’s New?
- PDF Import. Home document manager will now import PDFs as well as Images. Depending on how they are made, PDFs are often already searchable, in which case they are imported as-is. If they do not support text search, they are converted to the searchable PDF format upon import.
- The Search Box. This update sees the arrival of a new search box. Following user feedback, I’ve decided to take out the predictive search box and replace it with a simpler beast. If you have a view on whether or not this was the right way to go, be sure to let me know.
- Numerous bug fixes.
Once again, thanks for all the feedback. Happy shredding!
February 10, 2009 Comments Off
…to everyone for their support on the road to a first release. Particular thanks go to the hardcore beta testers who will, as promised, be receiving their complimentary licenses.
There are some rough edges still, but I am planning to issue weekly updates. Here are a few of the things lined up for the coming weeks:
- Importing an entire folder structure of scanned images from disk into the same folder structure in Home Document Manager
- Scanning images directly into the app
- Importing other document types
As always, when an update is available, Home Document Manager will update itself.
Happy shredding!
