Five Best Document Scanners for Going Paperless

Five Best Document Scanners for Going Paperless

Not every scanner is a great one if you're thinking about going paperless. You need a good one that'll handle all the documents, receipts, and oddly-shaped papers you need to digitize, and preferably one with great software support to help you keep all that stuff organized. Here's a look at five of the best, based on your nominations.

Earlier this week, we asked you which document scanners you thought were the best for the job. Not just any old scanner, or multi-function scanner/printer/copier—specifically which document scanners were best for helping you empty that filing cabinet and go paperless. We have a favorite of our own, but we've shown you how to go paperless with any scanner, and even cleared up some of your questions after the fact. After tallying up your nominations, here's a look at the top five.

The poll is closed and the votes are counted! To see which of these top five took the crown as the Lifehacker favorite, head over to our hive five followup post to see and discuss the winner!

Fujitsu ScanSnap S1500/Fujitsu ScanSnap iX500

Fujitsu ScanSnap iX500 Scanner for PC and Mac (PA03656-B005)

List Price: $495.00

Amazon.com: $426.98

The ScanSnap S1500 is technically no longer available, having been replaced by the newer ScanSnap iX500, but those of you who own them and nominated them noted that both models are exceptional at quickly scanning documents of different sizes and shapes, and even converting some text documents into searchable PDFs. While the S1500 was Windows only, the iX500 extends support to Mac users who want to organize their lives too. The S1500 sported 20ppm scanning, and the iX500 brought that up to 25, and both models have a document feeder that makes scanning multi-page documents as easy as loading the tray—no feeding each page one after the other. The iX500 also supports scanning to iOS and Android devices, can make PDFs with one button, and more. It'll set you back $500 retail ($430 at Amazon).

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Doxie Go

The Doxie Go is a great scanner—so much so that our own Adam Dachis used it to go paperless in two days, and showed you how you can do it too. It's a tiny thing, portable enough to fit into a bag and go with you almost anywhere, is powered via USB, and great for scanning everything from photographs to multi-page documents to tiny receipts on thermal paper. Best of all, the Doxie comes with software that makes the most of its features and helps you organize the documents you scan with it. If you scan text, the companion app does OCR so you can search the text in those documents, and if you prefer to use another platform like Dropbox or Evernote to organize your files, it syncs with those services as well. Even if you don't use another web service for your documents, the Doxie's software can sync with all of your (iOS) mobile devices and computers on its own. The Doxie Go will set you back $199 ($187 at Amazon), but the other Doxie models are a bit cheaper.

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Fujitsu ScanSnap S1300i

If you're looking for a more affordable ScanSnap document scanner than the previously mentioned iX500, the S1300i brings a smaller, space-saving form factor to your desk without sacrificing much of the power that makes the ScanSnap line a great one for digitizing documents. It does away with the large body in exchange for a smaller, more streamlined model like the Doxie Go or the NeatReceipts, but still includes a fold-out document tray for multiple pages and papers of odd sizes. You can keep the tray closed and feed photos or other documents yourself though, and the fact that it's tiny and USB-powered makes it portable enough to take with you if you travel. It even supports multi-sided documents, and it comes with the ScanSnap software for Windows and OS X to make getting your documents in a format you can use easy. The ScanSnap software can also sync with and scan to other web services, including Evernote, Dropbox, and Google Drive, if you prefer to use one of those services to organize your newly digitized documents. The S1300i will set you back $300 retail ($260 at Amazon).

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Neat Scanner

Despite its appearances on infomercials and late night television, the Neat Scanner is actually a capable document scanner, and those of you who nominated it praised it for being speedy, portable, and able to handle documents of all sizes easily, from business cards to full-sized sheets of paper. The Neat comes in two varieties, the NeatDesk (shown here) and the NeatReceipts, a smaller, USB-powered version similar in size and shape to the Doxie Go. Both models include supporting software to make scanning and organizing your documents easy, and that also sync with the Neat mobile app for iOS and Android. Neat's angle is to get you hooked with the device, and then sell you additional services, like its Neat Cloud service, which is essentially a Dropbox clone with a monthly fee, or its NeatVerify service that puts a human eye on every document you scan to make sure it's been processed correctly. On its own though, the Neat scanner and software package make a powerful enough combination to keep your paper clutter to a minimum. The NeatDesk will set you back $400 ($380 at Amazon), and the NeatReceipts $179 ($140 at Amazon). Both models come with the desktop software.

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Your Smartphone's Camera

Several of you said that your smartphone's camera and an accompanying organizational app would work just fine for you. It's free, not including the cost of an app you may use, and it only requires the equipment you already own. This is true, but this is a perfect case of getting what you pay for: it may be free and easy, but it's slow, especially compared to the other contenders in the top five, and scanning large, multi-page documents you may want to digitize will undoubtedly be an agonizing process with a smartphone's camera. If you want the document you photograph to be legible and useful, or even searchable once you save it and organize it, good luck. Still, enough of you nominated it that it's worth mentioning as an option. Photo by Mauricio Lima.

Five Best Document Scanners for Going Paperless

Wi-Fi for Every Room in the Home

 

Wi-Fi for Every Room in the Home

The Securifi Almond looks almost like an obese Windows Phone.

Wi-Fi is awesome. But when the Wi-Fi signal is weak, it’s almost worse than having no signal at all. You see signal-strength bars, but you can’t connect. Or videos play, but with a lot of pauses. Or your e-mail program tries to download messages, but just hangs there.

I’ve always wondered about Wi-Fi range extenders — little $60 to $80 routerlike boxes that are supposed to grab a weak Wi-Fi signal and amplify it. Recently, I had the perfect chance to put one to the test.

My fiancée’s San Francisco apartment is a chain of rooms off a single hallway. Living room in front, then bedroom, then dining room, then kitchen. Her Wi-Fi base station sits in the living room at the front of the house. That’s where the cable company’s jack enters the apartment.

The Times’s technology columnist, David Pogue, keeps you on top of the industry in his free, weekly e-mail newsletter.
Sign up | See Sample

Trouble is, in this old, stately building, the walls are thick and strong. By the time the Wi-Fi signal reached her bedroom, it was too flaky to use. Now and then, she could pull up Web sites or check e-mail, but video and music were out of the question. The dining room and kitchen had no Wi-Fi signal at all. That was a disappointment for a skilled chef who likes to listen to Spotify or Pandora as she cooks.

One possibility, of course, was to see about having a second router installed. But that would mean having the cable company install another jack. It seemed as if it would be faster, less expensive and less disruptive to get a Wi-Fi range extender — if those things really worked.

On Amazon, the highest-rated extender at the time I shopped in December was the Securifi Almond. It was billed as the first touch-screen router and range extender, and had strong customer reviews.

It looks great. Some of the range extenders seem to have been designed to be as ugly as possible — they look like, well, networking equipment — but this one looks almost like an obese Windows Phone, thanks to the colorful tiles on its touch screen. It’s very small (4.5 by 4.75 by 1.5 inches).

The touch-screen breakthrough is that you don’t need to connect the Almond to a computer — or to anything but a power outlet — to set it up. We placed it in the hallway outside the bedroom door; it sits nicely and nearly invisibly on the molding above the doorway. On the screen, I tapped the name of the existing Wi-Fi network, entered its password, waited about a minute, and that was it. Suddenly there was a new Wi-Fi network in the back half of the apartment, with the suffix “Almond” on the original network’s name.

This hot spot seems just as fast and capable as the real one, in the living room. My fiancée can now stream music or video, download files, do real work, everywhere in the apartment.

On her laptop, she has to switch manually to the Almond network when she moves into those rooms; my laptop usually hops onto it automatically when it wakes up.

The fine print: The Almond is also a regular router; that is, you can plug your cable modem into it to create a Wi-Fi hot spot. We didn’t use it in that configuration. If you do, note that its Ethernet jacks are not gigabit speed.

You should also know that rival range extenders are dual-band (they offer both 2.4 and 5 gigahertz bands, if you know what that means), whereas the Almond is 2.4 only. Rival extenders can cost less and offer more networking features.

But they’re also uglier and far more complicated to set up. The Almond does beautifully as a simple, effortless, attractive way for non-nerds to extend their hot spots into un-blanketed corners of the house.

http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/07/wi-fi-for-every-room-in-the-apartment/?pagewanted=all

Wi-Fi for Every Room in the Home

Wi-Fi for Every Room in the Home

The Securifi Almond looks almost like an obese Windows Phone.

Wi-Fi is awesome. But when the Wi-Fi signal is weak, it’s almost worse than having no signal at all. You see signal-strength bars, but you can’t connect. Or videos play, but with a lot of pauses. Or your e-mail program tries to download messages, but just hangs there.

I’ve always wondered about Wi-Fi range extenders — little $60 to $80 routerlike boxes that are supposed to grab a weak Wi-Fi signal and amplify it. Recently, I had the perfect chance to put one to the test.

My fiancée’s San Francisco apartment is a chain of rooms off a single hallway. Living room in front, then bedroom, then dining room, then kitchen. Her Wi-Fi base station sits in the living room at the front of the house. That’s where the cable company’s jack enters the apartment.

The Times’s technology columnist, David Pogue, keeps you on top of the industry in his free, weekly e-mail newsletter.
Sign up | See Sample

Trouble is, in this old, stately building, the walls are thick and strong. By the time the Wi-Fi signal reached her bedroom, it was too flaky to use. Now and then, she could pull up Web sites or check e-mail, but video and music were out of the question. The dining room and kitchen had no Wi-Fi signal at all. That was a disappointment for a skilled chef who likes to listen to Spotify or Pandora as she cooks.

One possibility, of course, was to see about having a second router installed. But that would mean having the cable company install another jack. It seemed as if it would be faster, less expensive and less disruptive to get a Wi-Fi range extender — if those things really worked.

On Amazon, the highest-rated extender at the time I shopped in December was the Securifi Almond. It was billed as the first touch-screen router and range extender, and had strong customer reviews.

It looks great. Some of the range extenders seem to have been designed to be as ugly as possible — they look like, well, networking equipment — but this one looks almost like an obese Windows Phone, thanks to the colorful tiles on its touch screen. It’s very small (4.5 by 4.75 by 1.5 inches).

The touch-screen breakthrough is that you don’t need to connect the Almond to a computer — or to anything but a power outlet — to set it up. We placed it in the hallway outside the bedroom door; it sits nicely and nearly invisibly on the molding above the doorway. On the screen, I tapped the name of the existing Wi-Fi network, entered its password, waited about a minute, and that was it. Suddenly there was a new Wi-Fi network in the back half of the apartment, with the suffix “Almond” on the original network’s name.

This hot spot seems just as fast and capable as the real one, in the living room. My fiancée can now stream music or video, download files, do real work, everywhere in the apartment.

On her laptop, she has to switch manually to the Almond network when she moves into those rooms; my laptop usually hops onto it automatically when it wakes up.

The fine print: The Almond is also a regular router; that is, you can plug your cable modem into it to create a Wi-Fi hot spot. We didn’t use it in that configuration. If you do, note that its Ethernet jacks are not gigabit speed.

You should also know that rival range extenders are dual-band (they offer both 2.4 and 5 gigahertz bands, if you know what that means), whereas the Almond is 2.4 only. Rival extenders can cost less and offer more networking features.

But they’re also uglier and far more complicated to set up. The Almond does beautifully as a simple, effortless, attractive way for non-nerds to extend their hot spots into un-blanketed corners of the house.

http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/07/wi-fi-for-every-room-in-the-apartment/?pagewanted=all

Free WiFi HotSpot Creator

WiFi HotSpot Creator: Turn Windows PC or Laptop into a WiFi Hotspot

From laptops, cell phone, tablet to TV’s and recently camera too, every device is Wi-Fi certified. This 802.11 technology has made our life simple by providing internet on every device. WiFi routers have become among the basic needs of the house-hold. What if you don’t have a router and still have WiFi devices?

There is no need to buy any separate hardware for it, your WiFi certified PC or Laptop can act as a WiFi router. With the announcement of Windows 8, I was expecting Microsoft to integrate this functionality as a one-click native feature in the new operating system. Even though, this didn’t happen, there are a few third-party applications which have made it possible.

Turn Windows PC into a WiFi hotspot

Here’s how to turn your PC or Laptop into a WiFi hotspot.

WiFi HotSpot Creator is an easy to use and simple application for Windows that will turn your PC with a wireless card or Laptop into a WiFi hotspot. This application works on the same technology used in the WiFi routers and uses your DSL, Cable, Mobile Broadband Card, Dial-Up, etc any of these connections to create a hotspot and that too without any need of extra hardware.

Step One: Download, Install and Run WiFi HotSpot Creator

Step Two: Under WiFi Name, type a name for your network. (WiFi network will appear on your devices with this name)

Step Three: Type a password to ensure security.

Step Four: Select the network card that your PC or Laptop is using.

Step Five: Select the maximum number of users that will connect to the WiFi.

Step Six: Click the Start button.

Step Seven: That’s it. Your PC or Laptop has started working as a WiFi hotspot. Use your devices to discover the network.

WiFi HotSpot Creator software download

Even though, there are many such applications, WiFi HotSpot Creator is very easy to use solution and works on the one-click action principle.

It works on any Windows PC or Laptop (including Windows 8) – the only basic requirement is a Wireless Network Card and .NET Framework 4 installed. If you have it, you are good to go!

Also see Enable Internet Connection Sharing & Create a Wi-Fi hotspot in Windows 8 natively.

UPDATE: Make sure you opt out of additional freeware, if you don’t want them installed.

Click on the Skip all free offers button to do so.

Windows Computer As WiFi Router

Windows Computer As WiFi Router To Access Internet On Phone and Other Devices

Shoumesh

Now a days the phones are coming equipped with 4G LTE but still in most of the people have not got 3G. There are two main reasons behind that Costly 3G handsets and Costly 3g data plans. But in these two reasons also the costly handset reason is not an issue as most of us now a days have handsets which support 3G and also they are very cheap and come of all segments of  users. Since its 3G and speed is fast hence people tend to browse more and hence it gets used up more and suddenly our usage that was 400 MB on 2G jumps to 1GB on 3G.

But most of us now a days have laptops which are equipped with 3G sticks through which we use internet on them. Now some of us may think that we use our laptop for almost the whole day then why can’t we use its internet on our phone. And today I have got the answer to that yes you can use its internet on your phone using Connectify Pro, the software is paid but its really worth the money however you can also use the free version with some limitations.

Access Internet On Phone Using Laptop WiFi Internet

This software will use the internet running on your laptop and then create a Wifi hotspot using the Wifi of your laptop. Now you can connect your phone to this wifi hotspot of your laptop and start browsing the internet on your phone using the internet of your laptop. Also the Wifi hotspot created by this tool is really secure to avoid its misuse so that only the person who knows the password to it can connect to it.

After you will download and install the software there will an icon created for the software in the system tray. You can access the software from this icon. Once you will click on this icon the above screen will open. As you can see that the application has four tabs Settings, Clients, Services and History.

In the settings you will get all the options to create the hotspot. First you can name you hotspot connection in the Hostspot Name text box. You should also choose the password of your choice and enter it in the Password text box. Then in the internet dropdown you will get various options and you can select the option that is suitable to you. Below that in the Security Mode select the Ad-Hoc, WEP in order to enforce password on your Hotspot.

In the Clients tab you can see all the devices that are currently connected to your hotspot and are using your internet. Using this you can keep a tab incase someone tries to use your hotspot.

This software can also be used to connect two computers or laptops and when they are connected you can share the files using this feature in File Sharing simply by drag and drop.

In the last tab i.e. you can check what all devices connected to your hotspot in case you are not able to keep a tab during work so that you can know if some used your hotspot without your knowledge.

Conclusion

This is a very simple software, but can be very useful for many users. If you have a related software to share or something else about any other thing or in case the above procedure does not work for you then please let us know through our comments section at the end of the page, also let us know if this software is helpful for you.

Read more: http://www.technixupdate.com/access-internet-on-phone-with-laptop-internet-connection/#ixzz2BBwKttWi

Windows Computer As WiFi Router To Access Internet On Phone and Other Devices