My so-called paperless life
I expected problems from my attempt to rid myself of the paper in my life. What I didn't expect was this complication from my wailing 4-year-old son, Levi:
"Daddy, why did you recycle all my pictures?"
Even though he raised that question in a half-asleep moment in the middle of the night last week, Levi's anxiety illustrated one big complication about the idea of going paperless.
In short, some physical objects have value that doesn't easily transfer to the bits of their electronic representation. There's a great divide between the physical and the virtual.
My son's drawing, 'A Truck Dreaming of Another Truck,' now exists only as a digital photo.
(Credit: Levi Konrad-Shankland)What led to this situation? Some people have gone paperless with evangelical fervor, but I'm just trying to pare down the amount of paper cluttering my life. Call it going paper-lite.
The formal effort began with an attempt to buy a new house. When we refinanced our mortgage in 2003, the lender insisted on actual physical documents from the actual bank--no printouts of statements downloaded from the bank's Web site, thank you very much. But in 2009, lenders were happy with e-mailed documents in electronic PDF form.
I'd been hoarding statements in an overstuffed, immovable filing cabinet in part because of the painful memory of paying a bank to reissue one missing statement. Freed from that constraint--and facing the imminent necessity to actually move that filing cabinet to a new home--meant the time had come to go digital.
I was surprised how far along I already was. For example, I started photographing my son's artwork long ago and sharing it through a Flickr group, figuring there was no way I could keep all the real versions I wanted. I give his works the "Levi art" tag for easier location later. These aren't high-end drum scans or anything--I just put the paper in good light and snap a photo.
Now I've also begun shucking old bank statements, scanning photos, and culling memorabilia. Here are five things I learned on the way.
1. Go for it
You can get started without going whole hog. Pick a corner of your life and expand from there at a pace that you're comfortable with.
Starting small lets you sort out your preferences and problems before you scrap your analog life. Obviously you should be careful with what you throw away--how many years back can the Internal Revenue Service audit your taxes?
With the most important documents, such as birth certificates, I just added digital versions and kept the original paper copies.
My banks and investment institutions have been needling me to go paperless already for years, so that's a good spot to start. I set up a subfolders on my computer for saving each institution's statements after download. If you're nervous, you can print out copies.
The technology for digitizing what can be digitized is maturing. Serious people get scanners with sheet-feed scanners for bulk digitization, but I decided to just go digital from now on. As the years go by, I'll gradually cull the older paper documents.
Another good place to start is photography. Your new photos are most likely digital, but your old photos are most likely hidden away.
Based on reviews and some recommendations from friends, I sent a giant batch of photos off to ScanCafe to be turned into JPEGs--they scan slides, negatives, and prints for 29 cents apiece, including basic correction for color and scratches, and you can reject up to half the shots without paying.
2. PDF is your friend
Adobe Systems did us all a favor when it invented Portable Document Format and did us another when it handed it over to the ISO for standardization so everything from Apple Preview to Google Docs can make use of them. I've had my complaints with the Adobe Reader software, but overall, PDF's ability to encapsulate graphics and text makes it ideal for the paperless era.
I never had much use for Adobe Acrobat software until wrestling with the oceans of paperwork involved with buying and selling homes. I couldn't go totally paperless, since physical documents had to be signed, but often I could photograph and crop the documents, use Acrobat to package them into PDFs, and e-mail them on their way.
It was cumbersome, but it beat buying a fax machine, and the documents were now stored electronically on my computer.
PDF is the preferred format for bank statements, too. Here, alas, is one of my biggest beefs: the monthly process of retrieving statements from the three banks, two mutual fund companies, and other financial institutions I deal with for 401k, 529, and IRA accounts.
They all send e-mail notifications of new statements, but all this downloading grunt work is a big hassle compared to the pre-paperless days when these statements would arrive in the mail with no effort on my behalf.
So why don't they just send me PDFs by e-mail? The PDF standard includes encryption, and Adobe digital signature technology that can assure a document hasn't been tampered with.
"We're very keen on the idea of banks, institutions, and utilities moving back to a more active delivery of a statement," said John Harris, Adobe's product manager, electronic signatures and security alliances. "The technologies are there and have been there for some time."
When I asked two of my institutions, E*Trade Financial and Vanguard Group, why they couldn't just e-mail me my statements, both said it's because of security. Vanguard is aware of PDF encryption technologies, "but we can't be sure that our shareholders will be able to support working with it on their computers," and the company also has to worry about shared access to a single e-mail account, Vanguard spokeswoman Linda Wolohan said.
E*Trade and Vanguard also keep back records--all of them in the case of E*Trade, and back through 2006 for Vanguard. I still like the idea of having my own copies, though.
3. Physical stuff has a downside, too
Freeing yourself from paper is liberating, even if you're not moving.
Getting rid of reams of documents gave me a feeling of lightness and inspired me to get rid of a lot more--that second-rate spatula, books I'll never reread, those margarita glasses we never used. Do first-world denizens need to have so much stuff?
Moving many heavy boxes of books just lent more impetus to my recent Amazon Kindle-initiated e-book revelation. We won't get rid of all our books, but 95 percent sounds about right.
Of course stuff can be useful. But because the value of paper documents often is just information, digital versions can be just as good. I reduced four drawers in a filing cabinet to one, and if all goes according to plan, I'll eventually be rid of one ugly piece of furniture altogether.
Many folks have already moved their music collections to digital form. When was the last time you needed those CDs? The CD sound fidelity is higher than what you'll get with MP3--but only if you actually listen to the CD.
And of course going paperless has obvious tree-preservation benefits.
4. Back up your data
You've heard it before, and now you're going to hear it again: keep your data safe. The farther down the paperless road you go, the more important that advice gets.
There are a variety of methods, and I recommend more than one. I start with periodic backups on a USB hard drive. For a smaller number of very important documents, burning CDs or DVDs is a good idea; periodically exchanging yours with your friends' gives some protection against disasters such as theft, fire, and flood.
The wave of the future are online services such as Mozy, Backblaze and Carbonite. If you have hundreds of gigabytes of photo files, as I do, expect to saturate your home Internet connection for a very long time.
Finally, there are specific online services that are useful for making some kinds of data much more easily accessible. You can store a JPEG of your passport at Flickr, handy if it's stolen while you're traveling, or a PDF of your tax forms at Google Docs.
But there's always some risk that your account will be breached or that some technical error at the hosting site will lead to inadvertent overshare, so think carefully about the risks as well as the rewards.
5. Save what truly has value
It took me two whole days to cull reams of documents from my filing cabinet, but it was well worth the effort. The hardest decisions were for documents that weren't obviously essential or disposable, and of course most fell into that intermediate category.
I concluded that I probably needed 1 percent of my documents 99 percent of the time and 99 percent of them 1 percent of the time. With physical documents, it's hard to speculate about which of the nearly useless documents might in fact become useful or even essential some day.
With digital documents, the penalty for being a packrat is much lower. Of course, finding that necessary document amid the e-clutter could be difficult. But I'm hopeful that in the long run desktop search will make it easier to locate what I need even if I don't invest a lot of effort in file organization or tagging.
But here's where things get complicated. I love history, I've accumulated plenty of items that, although mundane at the time of their creation, accumulated some historic or sentimental value. The guest book entries (Thomas A. Edison!) at Hermit Creek Camp in the Grand Canyon where my great-grandfather worked, for example, or my grandfather's Depression-era daily expense log.
The big question for me is how close electronic documents will come to holding the same value as their physical counterparts.
My animal brain can latch onto something better when it's accompanied by the texture of paper or the smell of crayon. Someday, perhaps, art museums will feature large electronic displays of paintings, but there's something extra with the original touched by the artist's paintbrush than with a mere copy, no matter high the fidelity.
For the really special stuff, I'm therefore keeping the physical incarnations. So, Levi, rest easy.
Stephen Shankland writes about a wide range of technology and products, but has a particular focus on browsers and digital photography. He joined CNET News in 1998 and since then also has covered Google, Yahoo, servers, supercomputing, Linux and open-source software, and science. E-mail Stephen, or follow him on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/stshank. 
http://www.majid.info/mylos/weblog/2006/05/01-1.html
One thing I would caution you about is making sure your backups are encrypted - otherwise you could be in for identity theft, and having offsite backups in case of a fire in your home.
That really added value to your article, Stephen. I'm glad you considered your kid's interests as you'd consider yours.
Thanks for sharing your experience in going "paper-lite".
Ironically, I found myself quickly scanning documents I wanted to keep, like art, photos, and other keepsakes. And then I go put those things right back into the drawer. Flickr is a good place to back up and share old artwork.
Buddy -
http://www.buddyscalera.com
Cheers,
Thom
http://www.thecontrariansblog.blogspot.com
For instance, you recommend backing up very important documents on CD or DVD. That's a nice idea, but burnable media has a definite life. Even when properly stored, it isn't that uncommon for it to degrade and become unreadable.
When it comes to any photographs that are preexisting in physical form, you also need to keep in mind that digitizing methods keep improving in quality. What you digitize now might not look as good as what you could digitize next year, or even with a different piece of equipment. In other words, you are potentially loosing quality, data itself, in the process.
Getting rid of CDs? If that's the format your music started in, I would recommend against it. Even with lossless formats, how do you prove you legally purchased a copy if you get rid of the originals?
In my experience with photos, the vast majority are of people smiling at the camera, in which case the ultimate fidelity is not essential. When it's the 19th century portrait of your forebears or you're a professional or enthusiast preserving your high-end work, yes, of course consider higher-quality alternatives and delaying while the prices come down and quality goes up.
Re. protecting yourself against an RIAA raid--that strikes me as a remote concern as long as you're not sharing your collection over the network. It's real concern, though, as is sound fidelity, so draw the line where you're comfortable drawing it.
That 19th century portrait is to us what some of our current photos will be to future generations. I cannot tell you how many 19th and early 20th century photos of past generations my family and I have looked at. Many of them are not professional, but that last grain of detail can help to identify where a photo was taken, who someone in the background is, or other useful things.
I agree 100% that banks should email you encrypted PDFs. Better still, bills - I don't care if anyone knows how much water I used last month, but I still have to go to the website to download my bill...
Steve is right. I understand the concern about lost mails and shared e-mail accounts but I would rather have the banks/utilities/financial inst. etc. e-mail me the PDF rather than having me go to their web-sites every month. I do not want to go to 30+ sites and do that. Kind of beats the purpose of less work (and paper) in opening the mail, throwing away (recycling) the envelopes etc. When all such institutions went paperless, they did not inform explicitly that the PDFs would NOT be mailed but rather have to be downloaded/printed from their site.
All the same, some institutions I use, store only the last 2 months of statements, forget to visit them and the statements are gone. That means needing to give each a call/e-mail to get the previous statements. Now, that doesn't happen with paper. Either the statement needs to be actively delivered by e-mail or statements for a much longer period need to be archived. e.g. Amex has the last 7 YEARS of statements. Now that is archiving.
To be entirely honest, I am not familiar with what security technologies exist inside PDFs, but would not want the security there. Rather, I'd prefer for the security to exist as a part of the delivery system. For example, how about I provide a public key as a part of my account profile and have the documents encrypted with that public key? S/MIME might present challenges for web mail users, but a key for a stand-alone program like PGP would overcome that.
Whatever the solution, we really need something that does not force me to log in to so many different web sites.
http://blogs.adobe.com/security/2009/02/packaging_options_for_encrypte.html
has this explanation:
Adobe Acrobat and Adobe Reader support a number of encryption and key management systems for protecting a PDF:
A. Shared Passwords...
B. Public Key Infrastructure (PKI): Publisher encrypts a document to one or more of the recipient public keys, which can be looked up in a directory or personal address book. Recipient can open the document by using their corresponding private key stored in software or in a hardware token.
C. Enterprise Rights Management...
While you may be able to get away with keeping an electronic copy for your self, once you need to share that info with others, it will be transformed back to paper. It is just "current" human nature.
I looked at them and said "Pfft, I can draw better than this" and tossed them on the floor.
That oughta toughen him up.
(joking!)
I've been e-filing my taxes since it was an available option - it's nice getting the refund back within a couple weeks of filing. I've not had checks in my checkbook for over a year, now - haven't needed them enough to warrant re-ordering.
I use CutePDF for most of my document printouts (though, that's been reduced since MS *finally* put PDF export into Office). So, my "printouts" are copied off to my NAS and emailed to whoever needs a copy.
It still kind of chaps my hide, though, when people want to send me paper. I always ask, "don't you have this in electronic format?" And they often say, "no," but, you KNOW that the paper version they're sending you is coming from an Office document. It also kind of sucks that, when they DO send you an electronic version, it's screwed up. Many places don't use fillable documents - either in Word or PDF format. If you want to fill in the Word document, you either have to convert it to a fillable format or you have to use text-boxes so you don't screw up the lines you'd be filling in with a printed out version of the form. You also get a lot of sites sending you static PDFs rather than ones that allow you to enter text. Then, your choices are to either get a PDF to Word converter or to photo edit the PDF ins something like PhotoShop or The Gimp (yes, I know that there are PDF editors out there, but most suck and the ALL seem to be non-free). It's also kind of painful when they send you a stack of different documents (either electronically or physically), and you want to create a single, filled-out bundle. Again, there's many for-fee products to do so, but I just can't get into buying a product just so I can deal with some company. It's a little too much like when companies or government agencies make documents available, but only in a format like Word (thus requiring you buy Word to read them - obviously pre OpenOffice).
In general, I don't even do cash. Once or twice a month, I get $200 out via ATM, for the luddites that don't accept credit or debit cards. For the rest, EVERYTHING is paid for with plastic (or even PayPal).
The one thing that really gums up the work, though, is the perceived privacy/data protection issue. While I've been using PGP and/or S/MIME since the mid-90s, very few companies and even fewer individuals do. Most don't even seem to know they exist. It just seems that, when they have you sign up for their web-site, they could have you paste your public key in (or issue you a cert) so that they can enable encrypted emails. Toss in TLS-enabled SMTP servers and encrypted documents, and you've got pretty damned secure delivery of data via email (triple encryption at +128bit for each layer). But, god forbid this be encouraged.
Great, now I'm all riled up again :)
What will happen if all your back-ups and such get zapped if the power grid doesn't go off? What about five to ten years from now when optical drives are a thing of the distant past? What if computer formats change? What if moving, you lose the box of digital optical discs full of your data? If stored on-line, what if the company goes bankrupt or just formats the server space for the hell of it? You are making a big mistake.
Never use a method that can't be done when the power's not on.
I'm not as worried about my personal records getting zapped. PDF and JPEG are in widespread enough use that as long as there are computers, these formats should be supported. For photos, I think it'll be far easier to convert JPEGs in bulk into some more modern format if necessary than it will be to deal with a box full of negatives. Right now I can print negatives at the local pharmacy, but what about 10 years from now? 30 years from now?
I do periodically refresh DVD and CD backups; they're not permanent archives. I wouldn't trust them for permanent storage.
For companies, I have implemented SharePoint along with InfoPath for forms, and some of the above and more. One company I did work for did contracts, faxing, AIA docs, plans, drawing, and much more in paper - now, it's all paperless and they couldn't be happier - it is just easier and much more efficient. If banks, medical, and law can go paperless - anyone can.
My point is, with a little creativity and ingenuity, any company/individuals can go paperless. I have taught even the technophobes to do such a thing. How much easier can it get when you have a digital filing system of everything you need? I advocate paperless for two simple great reasons, efficiency and conservation.
If you have challenges on this topic, email me at jordan dot turner1974 @yahoo dot com
Two tips: I print to PDF and save all online financial transactions in real time. I've also gotten hooked on Microsoft's beta Live Mesh, set up to automatically sync all my LAN "Shared Document" files - does so within a minute of booting any of the networked computers and saves an accessible copy online, up to 5 gigabytes, which is plenty for recent and necessary document files.
Would you scan the Mona Lisa and then destroy the original? Shame shame shame.
At the very least get a battery operated LCD picture viewer and mount it on the front of your fridge!
I (and others) see much more of his artwork as my iPhone splash screen, though. Digitizing artwork need not be the same thing as hiding it forever.
I certainly wouldn't toss the Mona Lisa; as I said, I try to keep the high-value stuff. When it comes to photographing my son's artwork and keeping a much smaller subset, I believe more is preserved for posterity, because realistically, I'm not going to save dozens of his pictures each month in physical form.
Stop insisting on paper copies of anything. Stop getting copies mailed to you. View them online, copy them and store them in an appropriate folder. Back up your documents after doing so. If your computer crashes you still have the back up available.
When I first became a computer user I was using a ream of paper every month. Now I use less then one a year and most of that is providing genealogical information to cousins who don't have a computer. I've actually had to replace a ink cartridge because it became dried out and cleaning couldn't get the ink flowing.
- by Been_there_Saw_it_before September 8, 2009 1:03 PM PDT
- Everyone probably has a horror story about losing files due to damage. The worst part is technology. Know any place where I can read my 2400-foot 1/2-inch 9-track EBCDIC tapes in 80/8000 blocked format for free? (How many of you even know what that is?)
- Like this Reply to this comment
-
Showing 1 of 2 pages (56 Comments)One of the few storage mediums that has withstood the test of time is carbon-based ink on sheets of cotton-linen paper. Stone tablets are good too.