To read my complete journey to GTD Mastery see the main post.

Step 15 to GTD Mastery is: I have a paper file system which is fun and fast to use, perhaps using an automatic labeler.

A couple of months ago, I put out a call for help to our readers for the creation of my paper file system. Many of the responses advocated a paperless system. After weighing my options, I chose the Fujitsu ScanSnap S510 scanner (Mac version here). The S300, a lower-end model is also available (comparison chart here). The factors that swayed my decision were the inclusion of Acrobat Standard and the carrier sheet support which helps with the scanning of my odd-shaped newspaper/magazine clippings. The S510 also scans over twice as fast and you can feed it 50 pages compared to 10 pages with the S300. This lets me use the S510 as my inbox.

First Impressions
Upon opening, I couldn’t believe how small the S510 was. Its footprint is less than a standard piece of letter-size paper.

Setup
Step-by-step instructions are provided in the manual and are easy to understand. The first step was to install the ScanSnap’s drivers and software and Acrobat (Windows 2000, XP, and Vista compatible). Everything went smoothly and, despite the software spanning 3 CDs, I only had to restart the computer once. The ScanSnap itself connects via USB and is run off of DC power.

Testing
I tested out the ScanSnap with a pamphlet I received from school. You can take a look at the resulting PDF here.

At this point in the review, I should be writing about how great a product the ScanSnap is and how it has simplified and revolutionzed my paper workflow. However, I’m going to outsource this part of my life, Tim Ferriss style. Ryan Norbauer over at 43 Folders shares my love for the ScanSnap.

Here’s the premise: the SnanSnap is the first consumer scanner (that I’ve used anyway) to truly be about information storage. It’s not for ultra high-resolution photo scanning; it’s all about documents and speed. Firstly, you initiate scans by piling your documents into the stacker and simply pressing the one big button on the face of the device. It then rapidly (and I mean damn fast) gobbles up your papers and spits them out at the bottom. Fujitsu says up to 36 pages/minute in duplex mode, and that sounds about right. The resulting digital document gets dumped right onto your hard drive in searchable PDF format, which every OS seems to understand natively these days. It automatically corrects for mis-aligned papers, auto-detects whether the document is color or monochrome, scans in duplex if it detects a back side to the page being scanned, and detects the size of the paper being scanned and intelligently crops the digital version to the right size. You can mix and match document types liberally and it stitches them all together into one PDF with each page automatically adjusted to its own parameters. I love that there is just one operative button: you just tell it to go to town, and it gets out of your way and makes smart guesses based on what you give it.

Carrier Sheet
I pulled out an old magazine clipping to test out the carrier sheet. Needless to say the ScanSnap came through again. You can find the resulting PDF here.

CardMinder
You can also scan any business cards you may receive.

The ScanSnap includes the CardMinder software for managing your business cards. Unfortunately, it only supports the reading of the contact’s name, company name, one phone number, email address. In the future, I hope that it will support address info, multiple phone numbers, and website. You can export the card info to Outlook or Outlook Express. If you use a different email client, CardMinder also allows you to export the info to a CSV file. I use Gmail and it supports the importing of CSV files.

Gmail correctly identifies the “name” and “email” fields from CardMinder’s CSV. However, the “phone” and “company” are placed in the contact’s notes under “more information.”

Final Thoughts
Being a student with a budget, I had my reservations about the ScanSnap’s price tag. However, in the long run, the ScanSnap will be cheaper than filing cabinets, file folders, a labeler, and labeller refills. I purchased mine from ATS Systems here in Canada with free shipping on orders over $99. There’s also a $50 rebate on all S510s purchased from January 1 to March 31. You can download the rebate here. The total cost of my ScanSnap came to $450 CAD. Amazon and eBay are currently selling them for ~$400 US (plus shipping). If you’re on a tighter budget, the S300 is listed for $260 CAD at ATS Systems. If you don’t need the carrier sheet and don’t mind slightly slower scan times, I would save your money and buy the S300. If space is a concern, the S300 is half the depth of the S510.

OneBigU’s slogan says it all, “Answer Questions, Help Darfur.” OneBigU is the brainchild of Eric Cheung, a University of Toronto graduate.

The idea came when I was stuck on an assignment for school. Sure, I could call up a friend or pester them with messages, but why do that?

I was pretty sure I wasn’t the only student in the world to be stuck on this particular problem.

If only there was a place where you could find old and new questions asked by students around the world along with the answers…

Perhaps Eric didn’t find that community, but he is starting to build it. Launching at the beginning of the year, OneBigU’s premise is similar to Yahoo Answers: ask questions and share your knowledge with anyone over the web. However, OneBigU focuses on students, with questions stemming from a student’s homework problems. Anyone is free to post a question without signing up. However, you must sign up in order to answer questions.

Upon answering a question, other members can vote if they believe your answer is correct. Ultimately, the submitter of the question selects a “best answer.” Following this, OneBigU pays the user who submitted the “best answer” as a portion of its ad revenue. The user is then free to either withdraw the funds to their PayPal account or donate the funds to OneBigU’s partner charity, Help Darfur Now (HDN).

HDN is a non-profit organzation geared specifically for students and their families that is dedicated to raising funds for and awareness of the genocide in Darfur, Sudan. It was started by three New Jersey high school students. Currently, HDN has 100 chapters across the US.

Prominently displayed on HDN’s home page are endorsements by the likes of George Clooney, Martin Sheen, and Senator Barrack Obama.

Hands-On
Below you can see the results of my experience with OneBigU.

What Does the Future Hold?

Currently, OneBigU has raised $35, with $25 going towards HDN. It remains to be seen whether OneBigU’s social consciousness will provide enough incentive to attract a larger user base.

One key factor at play would be its existence as an “online study group.” This has recently come under fire in Canada, where the Toronto Star reports that a student at Ryerson University (where I attend), located in Toronto, has been expelled for running a study group in Facebook.

For more info, see Eric’s interview with tech journalist Amber MacArthur, on the commandN video podcast.

On GearFire, I write about productivity and time management. If the adage “time is money” is true, then students need to manage their money too. Enter ClearCheckbook, a free Web 2.0 application for personal finance.

ClearCheckbook runs under the slogan “money management made easy” and I can wholeheartedly agree having used it for the last six months. Registration is simple, requiring only your e-mail and desired username and password. Upon registration you are presented with a step-by-step walkthrough of how to setup ClearCheckbook.

Step 1: Creating your Accounts

Account Name: Give your account a descriptive name.
Account Type: Is it Cash, Checking, Savings, or a Credit Card?
Active: Are you using it right now? If not, unchecking the box will hide the account until you need again.

Step 2: Manage Your Categories

When creating categories, I recommend subcategories to allow for detailed tracking of your spending habits. This stems from my adoption of the methodology in Your Money or Your Life. It is a personal finance book that comes highly recommended from tier-one bloggers.

Step 3: Manage Your Initial Balances

Amount: Enter the current balance of the account.
Description: Enter something appropriate.
Transaction: Initial balance.
Account: Do an initial balance for each of your accounts.
Category: You don’t need to categorize the initial balance.

After you have finished setup, you can click on the “summary” to go to your home page (seen below).

Step 4: Record your transactions

You are now ready to record your daily transactions. For example, you buy a DVD for $20 in cash.

Splitting a Transaction
Let’s say you order multiple items from Amazon on your credit card. ClearCheckbook let’s you subdivide the main transaction (seen below).

Balancing your Accounts

Forget whether your cheque has cleared? Worried about credit card fraud? ClearCheckbook uses “jiving” to easily balance your books. Each transaction has a checkmark beside it. You can confirm all your transactions by “jiving” them. For example, you go to your online banking and see the Amazon order on your credit card statement. In ClearCheckbook, you click “un-jived” in view options. “Jive” the Amazon order by clicking on the checkmark beside it (seen below).

Paying Off Your Credit Card

Spending Reports
You can view your spending habits by clicking on “reports” at the top of the page. ClearCheckbook provides pie charts and bar charts.

Recurring Notices
ClearCheckbook can send you reminders of payments or automatically create recurring transactions. You can access this by clicking “tools” at the top of the page.

Budgeting/Monthly Spending Limits
Also found under the “tools” page, it is a set-it-and-forget-it way to start budgeting.

Other Tools
ScratchPad: A text page for recording notes (e.g. use it as a wishlist).
Quicken Support: Import and export Quicken files.
Checkbot: Record your transactions using instant messaging or SMS on your cell phone.

If you’ve made it through this post, I’m sure you’ll find that ClearCheckbook is a powerful, intuitive, and free way to manage your finances. I know I have.

Full credit to Pascal Venier who posted a review of his Easy-read.

So what is it? According to their web-site,

Easy-read is an ergonomic book holder that allows its user to read in real comfort without the aching hands and discomforts we usually experience holding our book open.

As Pascal said, “I do not know how I managed before without it.” The Easy-read works flawlessly as described. They provide a set of easy, understandable picture instructions with how to setup the Easy-read (it’s actually easy). It has made reading and taking notes from textbooks much more efficient and less painful. It also makes practising speed-reading a lot easier because you don’t have to hold the book with one hand while using your other hand as the pointer.

It also serves as a copy holder when working at the computer. This comes in really handy when you’re writing a paper from an outline.

I can’t think of anything bad to say of the Easy-read because it just works. You can buy one from their site for only $19.95 + $2.95 shipping (USD). It also makes a great gift for anyone (especially fellow students).

It seems that nowadays everyone wants to work from home. It isn’t hard
to see why. The advantages to the employee are enormous: less time
spent commuting, more flexibility, and a more comfortable work
environment. So how do you convince your employer to let you work from
home? Sure there are advantages for him, but most employers don’t
trust their employees enough to work without supervision on the
payroll.

This is where clockspot comes in. Clockspot is a time-tracking
application for employers that lets them track employee time from
anywhere in the world. Not only does it let employees punch in and
out, but it logs what project they are working on, summary notes for
their session, and calculates how much you owe them.

From the employer’s view

The employer can log into the online interface and instantly see tons
of useful information about how their employees are working, such as
who is working right now, detailed logs of each employee, how much
money is owed to each employee, as well as vacation time, time
breakdown by project, and an interface to send messages to the
employees to see when they log in.

From the employee’s view

Arguing with your employer over time spent working is a thing of the
past. With clockspot you can clock in via web or through your cell
phone. You can fill out reports on what you did during your work
period so your employer always fells comfortable with you working at
home.

Potential for cheating?

The only problem I see with clockspot is that there is no real way to
see if someone is cheating or not. What stops an employee from
clocking in then playing games? I see they tried to integrate a phone time clock, but I don’t know how effective it is. Obviously the employer could tell
after a couple days when the employee hasn’t accomplished anything,
but it still makes me nervous that I might be paying money without
cause. At the same time, I think that only allowing trusted employees
might work.

Pricing

To top it off, clockspot is a fairly cheap solution. The service
starts at $10 per month, and you only pay $2 per employee and $5 per
manager that you add. I feel really good about this, because they
aren’t just appealing to the larger companies by charging lots of
money. By being completely scalable, they allow almost anyone to use
their service. In fact, I am thinking of using it later for one of my
projects!

Concluding Thoughts

As a student, I have no direct application for clock spot right now,
but boy do I want to! Clockspot is the best employee time-tracking online timesheet
I have ever seen. Not only is it full in features, but the interface
is slick and fun to use. Think Basecamp but slicker. For anyone who
needs an employee time-tracking application, I would highly recommend
Clockspot.

Clockspot: employee time tracking.

You may or may not have heard of Pownce, Kevin Rose’s web start-up which makes it easy to share links, photos, videos, or files with friends. Before you say “Ugh, not another chat/twitter/messaging app” let me tell you why Pownce fills a previously open gap, and why it will be useful to you.

Lets imagine you want to send a link to a music video to your friend. You would use IM, but he is offline. You don’t want to send it over email, because nobody likes getting tons of random links stuffing their inbox. So what do you do? If you want the whole world to see it, you could post it on his facebook wall. If not, use Pownce.

Pownce is a great way to share links, files and notes with your friends because it eliminates the constraint of being online at the time, and does not clutter up their inbox with small messages. Imagine if every time someone wanted to send you a link, they emailed you. Your inbox would be full of these links, and you wouldn’t be able to give priority to important messages. Pownce allows you to drop a message to any number of friends, or even the public.

When Twitter came out, I saw a huge buzz from everyone about how useful it was, and how important it is to tell the world what you are doing every single moment. I disagreed the whole time, and to this day still do not use Twitter. However when Pownce came out, I saw a gap being filled, and a unique method of sharing stuff with your friends emerge. Pownce even has a cool little Adobe AIR app that you can use on your desktop.

By the way, I have 5 extra Pownce invites that I won’t need. If you want one, just drop a comment below.

Pownce

Myndology recently came out with a new line of environmentally friendly notebooks called the “Bare” series. I have reviewed Myndology notebooks before, and have expressed how pleased I have been.

The new Bare series comes in two sizes. The old Journal (6.5″ x8.5″), and a new size called Memo (3″x4″) which is similar to an old Index size, but has rings on the side instead of the top. For the review, Myndology sent me the journal notebook pictured to the right.

What is Bare?

Let’s talk about what makes Bare different from Myndology’s regular line of notebooks. The concept is that each notebook is made from recycled acid-free paper, printed on with soy ink, and manufactured with clean energy.

Colors and Design

The first thing you notice is that the color-scheme uses very earthy tones compared to the original fluorescent designs. The notebook also has a new cover, which is just as interesting as the last. If you thought the original Myndology covers were too flashy, Bare is for you.

Paper Quality

The paper is slightly yellow tinted, but it is not noticable. It gives the notebook an old feeling, which may be something you are after. The paper also fits nicely into the general earthy color scheme.

Price

Just like buying organic produce costs more than regular produce, and free-range eggs cost more than regular eggs, this environmentally friendly notebook will cost you about 50% more than it’s regular counterpart. Certainly more expensive, but not unreasonable, considering the environmental friendliness of the notebook.

Conclusion

The new Bare notebooks are a great alternative to Myndology’s primary line, but are not for everyone. If you like the style, or want an environmentally friendly notebook and are willing to spend the extra couple bucks, go for it! Personally, I like the flashy fluorescent primary colors, so I think I will stick with them.

Goodies for Gearfire Readers

I asked Myndology to supply a 10% off coupon for Gearfire readers who would like to buy notebooks. The code is “GTDFOR10” without the quotes, and it is valid until the end of sept ember. I highly suggest you take advantage of this, and at least buy a Journal sized notebook. You will not regret it! By the way, this is NOT a paid review.

Note: The following is a sponsored post. The makers of Backup4All have donated $10 towards our hosting fees, in return for an unbiased review of their product on our website. Please note that while the post has been sponsored, our opinions are not, and we will voice our true opinion about the product, whether it be positive, negative, or both.

Backup4All is one choice among hundreds if you are looking for backup software for your computer. Check out this review as I walk though the interface and backups, and if you like it, try a trial copy at the bottom of the page.

First Impressions

When I first opened Backup4All, I noticed that it wasn’t the most attractive backup program I have seen, and it looked as if it had been based on an older version of windows. Also, the default window size was smaller than the actual button bar, so you could only see half the buttons until you manually resize it. After checking the options though, I found a setting to fix this. However it escapes me as to why this wasn’t automatically enabled.

I soon found out that you could create backup profiles in “groups” in the grey sidebar. Meaning you could have 20 separate backup profiles and not have to scroll by clicking back and forth between groups. Cool feature, but one that I probably wouldn’t use. I went through the options and was surprised by the flexibility that Backup4All offers the user. There are many options and settings that you can change to customize your backup to your liking. I then went to backup my files. Here are a couple good things I noticed:

Relatively quick backup - even a full backup only took a couple seconds and was as fast or faster than the standard windows copy.

Choose types of Backup - you can choose to perform a full backup, a differential (all data changes since last full backup) or incremental backup (all data changed since last full, differential, or incremental backup.)

Statistics- you can see at a glance when your last backup was, total backups, and other backup stats. You can also predict stats for the next backup, such as how many files will be transferred, how much extra space is needed, and more.

Backups include a profile file - just in case your computer crashes, Backup4All places a file with each backup that allows you to restore its settings into Backup4All. This is a nice feature that I haven’t seen in too many backup programs.

Along with these were a bunch of features that I didn’t like.

You can only backup to Zip - For some reason, you can only backup your files to a ZIP archive. I tried shuffling through the settings, but couldn’t figure out how to change this. This is pretty annoying, because I frequently navigate through my backups to restore only 1-2 files.

Requires Backup4All to restore - because of the complex structure of multiple zip files per backup (if you backup incrementally, you may have over 20 for a single profile!) you need Backup4All installed to recover your files. Again, this is very inconvenient because I enjoy being able to drag and drop my files back into their original destination. Also, you cannot navigate backups easily because they are split up into so many zip archives.

Bad Scheduler - the scheduler was nothing more than a button that opened up the default Windows Scheduler. It was hard to use, set up, and it didn’t apply well to the backup software. A custom scheduler such as the one found in most other backup programs would be nice.

Download Backup4All [Backup4All Website]