The NeatDesk

There were some really exciting raffle prizes at the Gala Industry Exchange portion of the 2011 Los Angeles Organizing Awards. I was lucky enough (and bought enough raffle tickets) to walk away with a NeatDesk scanner from The Neat Company. I finally got it set up this weekend, as my computer had been in to MacEnthusiasts (which has the nicest people you will ever find at a Mac repair place in Los Angeles) for a checkup.

The NeatDesk is a small scanning unit that you use with the NeatWorks software. The scanner can take up to 15 normal sheets of paper, 15 receipts, and 15 business cards at once, or you can take out the receipt/business cards tray and it can take up to 50 sheets of paper. My initial thoughts after completing the straightforward set up and trying it out, are wow-it works so fast, and wow-it auto-populates well.

The system works to archive your paper, as well as make the information on your paper searchable and easily retrievable through its simple file structure. I love when you start using a new system and everything is clean and you can set it up from the ground floor exactly how you want it. The scanner takes the sheets and spits them out quite rapidly, then the software catches up and reads the scan, deciding what kind of item it is and pulling as much information as possible to populate the various data boxes that are associated with each item. For instance, it will try to find the work phone number on a business card and put it into the work phone number slot, and then you can update your Mac Address Book with the new information, tying Address Book entries to business cards you've scanned.

The scanner will make that function on my 7 year-old all-in-one printer obsolete.

As I try to minimize the amount of paper I have to keep around, I do a fair amount of scanning. I can see that the NeatDesk is already replacing my flatbed scanner. What is yet to be determined is if I'll end up using it to archive stuff I already have a system for, for instance, converting my business card binder from the physical to the electronic. I can usually find a card I want pretty easily, but the NeatDesk would make such light work of the conversion process that it might be worth doing.

Lelah Baker-Rabe is a Los Angeles-based professional organizer. To discuss your organizing needs, call her at 818.269.6671 or email lelah@lelahwithanh.com

Technology I'm thankful for

Thanksgiving is this Thursday. I'm thankful for so much great stuff in my life, it would take a really long blog post to document them all. So here are a few techy things that I'm thankful for that make my life and my work simpler.

• Gmail. I manage several email accounts and Gmail makes it easy to do it all from one portal. I love the labels and filters features, but most of all, I love the search function and the enormous amount of space I can take up, all for free. Gmail Labs also has some awesome add-ons that really enhance my use of basic Gmail.
• Goodreads. I really like being able to keep track of which books I've read by updating my Goodreads profile whenever I finish a book. It's a great holding place for books I want to read as well.
• Bento and Pages. These two Mac programs are a joy to use. Bento makes my financial and business tracking simple and easy to search, modify and combine. Pages makes any word processing document a pleasure to create.
• Evernote. Evernote creates searchable pdfs out of almost anything that you can look at on your computer. The free version has plenty of functionality for me, but the paid version is great, too. 

What are you thankful for this year?

Lelah Baker-Rabe is a Los Angeles-based professional organizer. To discuss your organizing needs, call her at 818.269.6671 or email lelah@lelahwithanh.com

Reviewed: Bento

Bento is a Mac-only program from the makers of FileMaker. It's marketed as a organizational tool and I have been using it for the past two months for financial tracking and also to organize the guest list for my wedding. 

In simplest terms, it is a user-friendly spreadsheet program that trades the sophisticated functionality of Excel for prettier graphics, ease of use and wonderful integration with other Mac programs like Address Book and iPhoto. You can also export easily to Excel or Numbers if you need to create more complicated formulas than simple sums or counts.

I like Bento because it is easy to start using. In layout, it reminds one of iTunes at first, as you can create libraries and collections of data and the search feature in the upper right hand corner is similar. You can quickly start making a table full of data, and then switch to the form view, which allows you to create a card for each piece of data, called a record, which is really useful for seeing if a certain guest is also attending the rehearsal dinner and being able to see a picture of them so the groom can practice name/face recognition.

The applications for the program are not unlimited. Within the form view there are many preprogramed themes you can choose from, but you can't change the font color, for instance. However, I think Bento is a good program for fairly-savvy Mac users who want an alternative way to keep records or aid in event planning that's friendly and intuitive.

 Lelah Baker-Rabe is a Los Angeles-based professional organizer. To discuss your organizing needs, call her at 818.269.6671 or email lelah@lelahwithanh.com