Bringing paper into the digital world, personal scanning options

SafelyFiled is a great solution for secure, immediate access to your important documents.  But many of those important documents are only on paper.  How can you bring them into the digital space?

The short answer is that you need to scan your documents.  During scanning, you take a picture of your document pages, and get a file (generally a pdf) that contains all the images.  Your scanning options have expanded in recent years.  In this article, we'll review your options for personal scanners.  In a future article, we'll look at other scanning options in your community.

PC/Mac scanners

You can go to your favorite electronics store and have a wide variety of scanners to choose from.  Most of these scanners will work quite well, but you need to consider for a few key features to determine what is the right choice for you.

Page feeding

You can acquire a very portable single page scanner such as the Vupoint Magic Wand for well under $100.   It is cheap and portable, but if you need to scan documents that are many pages, it will get tedious very quickly.  For a cheap and portable solution you probably want to investigate a smart phone solution instead (see section below).

Most larger scanners used to just be flat bed scanners.  You had to place the document on the glass like a copying machine, and press the button to scan.  Again for multi-page documents, this can be quite tedious.  Today many scanners have a auto document feeder (ADF) like the Epson Workforce or the Fujitsu ScanSnap.  You place your documents in the feeder and press start to copy.  Some scanners also provide a duplex option.  That is, it will scan both sides of the page put the results in the correct order in the resulting file.

Scanning software

Scanning will require some software on your PC or Mac.  Make sure that software provided with the scanner you select works with the version of the operating system on your PC/Mac.

The good news is that the usability of scanning software has improved over the years, but software usability still has some issues.   The ease of use of the software is a differentiating feature that is hard to evaluate in the store.  The Fujitsu ScanSnap line has a very good reputation for software usability.  Generally, the difficulty is just in getting things set up.  You may want to consider paying your neighbor's teenager to get things set up and show you which programs to run.  Once things are set up, it is generally a matter of starting up the scanning program on your computer, loading the document in the scanner and pressing the scan button.

USB vs networked

Another selection criteria is determining how your computer talks with the scanner.  All (almost all?) scanners provide a USB interface.  You just plug it directly into your computer.  This is probably the easiest option, but then only one computer can interact with the scanner.  Many scanners also provide a networked option, and today that is generally a wifi option.  If you have wireless set up in your home or office already, then it is just a matter of following the manufacturer directions to connect your scanner to the to the wifi network.  The networked scanners also support USB, but you're probably paying an extra $10-$20 for the networking feature.

All-in-one versus single function

You can buy dedicated scanners, but from a price/performance perspective you should also look at the 3-in-one or all-in-one machines.  These machines do printing, copying, and faxing in addition to scanning, and the cost is competitive with the single function scanning machines.  I recently purchased the Epson Workforce for under $200.  I don't use the fax function, but I do use the copying and double sided printing functions on a regular basis in addition to the scanning.

Smart phone scanning

Your smart phone has a high resolution camera, so it meets the hardware requirements of a portable scanner.  You could just use the camera app on your iPhone or Android to take pictures of your document, but you should investigate scanning apps.  The scanning apps will

• Combine pictures of multiple pages into one document.
• Do image analysis to brighten and re-orient your pages.  So even if you are taking pictures in less than ideal light, the resulting page image will look ok

Once you have scanned your document onto your phone, you could email it to yourself (or into your SafelyFiled account).  You could access the file by plugging the phone into your PC and accessing the scanned document file as you would access your pictures and music files.

The two leading scanning apps in the Android space are

• CamScanner
• Handy Scanner

 On the iPhone several scanning apps include

• CamScanner
• TurboScan
• SafelyScan This app uploads the resulting document into your SafelyFiled account

These scanning apps are very handy for scanning small documents on the go (like receipts and warranties).  And the quality rivals that of a dedicated scanner, but if you have a document that is 10's of pages long, you will want to find a dedicated scanner with a automatic document feed.

Today you have multiple relatively inexpensive options to scan documents.  For less than $10 you can make your smart phone a very capable portable scanner.  For under $200, you can bring a scanner into your home or office that is capable of efficiently scanning multiple page documents.

From a memory to a tradition - A User's Testimonial

I did it !  I just ordered some ladybugs off the internet and they should arrive in the next 3-5 days.  

 I did this last year also.  I gathered the grand kids and we played with the ladybugs.  We talked about their spots and about what the ladybugs do for the garden and then released them into my back yard.  We enjoyed it so much last year that I knew I wanted to do it again this year but I couldn't remember what the website was that I purchase them from or how much I paid.  I can’t find any of the paperwork.  It is gone.  So I searched the internet again, found what appeared to be a reputable site and placed my order.

Ready for next year

I did something different this year that will help me when I'm ready to do this again next year.  I created a folder on Safelyfiled and called it “Entertainment” and a sub folder “Ladybugs”.   I took a snapshot of the website and my online receipt and uploaded it into my Safelyfiled.com account.   Next year I will know exactly what site I used and how much I paid. (I’m feeling pretty smart right about now)

This idea spurred me on to others

I decided I really liked the idea of storing my fun purchases in Safelyfiled.  So I pulled out some of my Christmas purchase receipts and loaded them in the Entertainment folder.  I filed a copy of the membership cards for the Children Museum,  Kids Commons and Wonder Lab.  My gift receipt of a balloon ride for my son and his wife is now in there along with the gift receipt of the one day Survival training for the men in my life.  This was a great way to document the event, add any special notes to the file and to remember the cost and location in the event we want to do it again.

I am awaiting the ladybugs' arrival and planning on having the grandkids over for our release party which I hope creates a special memory for them.  For me,  I don’t have to remember the who, what, when or where I purchased these special gifts because it is all in my folder. Oh yeah, I almost forgot to mention - I also set a reminder for me next year this time to order them again. 

Creating a special childhood memory

Thank you Safelyfiled,  you have helped me to make a sweet memory become a tradition!

SafelyFiled vs Dropbox

We get this question often and it's a legitimate one!  Since it has come up so often, we thought we'd write a blog about it in the hopes that it will help everyone understand there's a need for both Dropbox and SafelyFiled.

Dropbox is a great tool.  With Dropbox, you have a copy of all of your files downloaded on all of your devices so you can access them offline and yet they are backed up for you in the cloud.   Dropbox allows file sharing which is great for productivity with colleagues, family and friends.  They explain that your files are secure both during transmission and when backed up on their servers.  But the files are also kept on your personal devices and they are not encrypted there.   They also allow third party Apps to access your files (user configurable) which could be a risk.  If you want to share a file with someone who is not a Dropbox member then you can do so, but you do that by emailing a link.  Anyone who might have access to your email, like someone who installed a sniffer on one of the servers that help transmit your email, has access to the link and the file.

So What About SafelyFiled?

Here's where SafelyFiled is different.  First, the types of files we're recommending you keep in SafelyFiled are not collaborative work files (although you could do that).  We are a secure filing and organizational system for very important, sensitive, legal and personal files.  Things like your will, insurance policies, estate planning documents, medical records, tax documents, military documents, birth certificates, and the like. Paperwork that you would usually file in a physical safe deposit box or a fire-safe box or other safe place at home. Paperwork that your loved ones or legal representatives might need if something happens to you.

These are not the types of files that you want to keep a copy of on your mobile devices where they could be accessed if the device ends up in the wrong hands or if that device is lost or damaged.  To be honest, files sitting on your computer aren't always as safe as you might think.  Bad sectors on a hard drive can damage the file or Malware and Trojan viruses could infiltrate your files and even transmit them to a bad guy without your knowing it.

With SafelyFiled, everything is uploaded online into our secure servers.  You would simply use a scanner or our mobile App to create a digital image of those documents.  Then the uploads are done simply with drag and drop, like Dropbox.  But you must first log into your SafelyFiled account before you can drag and drop them in.  By logging in, you activate the security and all your files are then transmitted encrypted and stored encrypted.  When you log in to look at one of your files, your files are decrypted and you can view your documents without having to download them first.  You can even view them on your smart phone or tablet, at home or away.

SafelyFiled is also an organizational system.  We provide a unique meta data section where you can not only title your documents, but you can add unique tags, write notes (like you'd do on a sticky note on physical files), add the physical location of the originals of documents that you do need to keep paper copies of (like wills, birth and death certificates which have the original certified seal), and you can specify who the document pertains to (a specific family member for example).  You can set reminders on documents in the event you need to take action on something in the future (like a warranty that will expire) and you don't want to rely on your memory to remind you.  All of this meta data makes it extremely easy to find something very quickly.

Our File Participation Model

We allow file sharing; but it's done very differently than Dropbox.  In SafelyFiled, you can invite others to share files via a simple invitation process.  An email is sent as an invitation, but its not a link to your document, it's a link to SafelyFiled where they must accept the invitation, create their own log in and password, and get validated as the right recipient with an additional access code sent to their cell phone or email address you've input during the invitation process.  When you invite someone, you receive confirmation of their acceptance so you can make sure you're sharing your files with the intended person.  Plus, you can terminate their sharing privileges at any time.  There are activity logs built in too. Any action taken on your account, whether by you or someone you've invited,  is logged.  You can see what was done, when it was done and who did it.  Nothing happens on your files without a record of it.

Dual Authentication

We have dual authentication implemented on SafelyFiled.  You can opt to have that turned on all the time, none of the time, or only if someone (or you) tries to access your SafelyFiled account from a device other than one you've indicated as private (recommended).  Even if someone could guess your log in and password they still could not gain access to your files as they would also need the access code which is sent to your cell phone or email which is on file with us.

Bottom line?  

There is a need for both Dropbox and SafelyFiled.  A good metaphor would be, use Dropbox as you'd use a briefcase and SafelyFiled as you'd use a safe deposit box.  However, unlike a physical safe deposit box you can now access all of your important files from anywhere at anytime and you can give keys to whomever you want.  Even better, invitees with a key can't see every file in your box, only what you give them access to!

Making tax filing easier

It's tax day as I write this blog.  I put off the dreaded task until last week but got it done and am now thinking about how to make this task easier next year.  I don't think I've met anyone who looks forward to the process of filing taxes.  You have to be able to find and provide supporting paperwork for your return, no matter who does the filing.

I started doing a few things differently last year that helped.  But this year, now that I have a SafelyFiled account, I plan on doing things even smarter and being proactive which should really help for next year.  Since the pain of filing taxes is still very fresh in my mind, I thought now would be a good time to get new processes in place and keep them up so that next year, barring any crazy new tax laws that I'm not prepared for, filing will be much easier.

Paper Organization

The first change we made since we own a small business as well as personal files,  was that we set up our business file folders to correspond to the filing categories that line up with the Turbo Tax categories.  That

Before SafelyFiled

helped tremendously this year as we didn't have to stop data entry to go through the stack of receipts and other business related papers to sort them into the proper categories.  That was a great start but my files still look a little chaotic as seen in this photo.

Digital Organization

Now that we are using SafelyFiled, I've set up folders in my SafelyFiled account to follow that same model.  But instead of keeping paper copies of all of the receipts and supporting documents, which are no longer necessary as I file electronically, I will scan or use my smart phone to take images of these paper documents, shred the originals as I go and keep only a digital copy in my SafelyFiled account. That way, if I am audited in the future, I can simply go to my business files for the appropriate year(s) being audited, and can either grant access to the auditors so they can view them or I can download all of the docs to a thumb drive or CD and provide that to the auditors if they'd prefer.  Instead of the paper clutter, now my files look like this:

After SafelyFiled

Secondly, after I completed my return this year, I discovered that to print them for my physical folders, it was going to be 50 pages long!  Printer ink is expensive and it takes up a lot of space to store those records for 3 - 5 years as required by the IRS.  Not to mention the time it will take to shred them all when I no longer need to keep them.   So, instead of printing my tax return to the printer, I opted to print them directly to a PDF file.  Then I uploaded that file into my SafelyFiled account under my Taxes -> 2012 -> Completed Tax Files folder.  I then added helpful tags to help me quickly locate it in the future if needed.  I also left a note to myself recording the steps I took to print to PDF, in the event I forget how I did that when it comes time to do it again next year. I also set up a reminder on my file to nudge me along a little sooner next year.

Pain free option

I may not do my own taxes in the future.  I may opt to hire an accountant because my taxes are getting more complicated.  If I add my supporting tax documents to SafelyFiled throughout the year and decide to hire an accountant next year, I can simply invite my accountant to share in those folders where they can view all of my supporting paperwork and even download them to their computer if desired.  I can leave instructions as notes on files and we can communicate on very sensitive information securely without having to transmit data via email or over the phone, which is very unsecure.

For tax accountants (and other service professionals), this would be a great way to build loyalty for your business as well.  You can use SafelyFiled for your own business then sponsor or refer your clients to SafelyFiled and start them off by uploading their tax return forms for them!  I for one would be so very thankful to my service professional for doing that for me!

Tagging your way to organization

Traditionally documents on computers have been organized in directories, and paper documents have been organized in folders.  If you have a strong organizational scheme this can work well.  When you want to find the office phone bill from the spring of 2003, you know to look in your computer under Office->Utilities->Phone->2003.

But what if you are not so consistent in your organizing scheme?  Was that Office->Utilities->Phone or Phone->Business?  What if the organizational criteria for document does not neatly fit a single category?  Where will you file the receipt for you newest mobile phone?   Under Business->Phone, Warranties, Business->receipts, Warranties->2013, etc?

Tags to the rescue

In that case you need a more flexible solution. Use tags.  You can think of tags as labels or sticky notes you would apply to things in the physical world.  For your mobile phone receipt, at different points you may want to look for it as receipt, mobile phone, warranty, 2013, or business.  You can create a tag for each category and apply all of them to the receipt.

Tags in the physical world.

Image credit: tovovan / 123RF Stock Photo

This would result in chaos in the physical world.  You would have pieces of papers with many labels on them, but you would still never be able to find anything.  Fortunately, things are different in the digital world.  The computer can quickly find all the documents with the 'mobile phone' tag regardless of which folder you happened to place the documents in.

So if you are thinking of your mobile phone receipt in terms of remembering how much you paid for it, you might want to use the 'receipt' tag to look for it.  If you are thinking of your mobile phone receipt in terms of getting the phone replaced because it broke, then you would use the 'warranty' tag to look it up.

Tagging in SafelyFiled

SafelyFiled encourages you to associate tags and other meta data with your documents and folders to ease later searches for documents.  This meta data for the currently selected document or folder is displayed on the right side of the document screen.

Example SafelyFiled document view.  Note the meta data details (including tags) on the right hand side

'Location' and 'Refers To' are tags as well.  Their purpose is specialized to indicate where a document is stored (in the case of Location) and who it refers to (in the case of Refers to).  In the case of this document, I've indicated that the physical copy of the Air Conditioner Warranty is stored in my filing cabinet in the top drawer; it refers to my family in general; and I'm tagging it as a warranty, a house issue, and an appliance.

The best part of tagging comes on the document retrieval.  On the upper left side of the screen there is a search text field.  Next to the search text field, I've selected the "tags+" option.  This means that my search will concentrate on tag, location, and refers to elements.  Later when I want to review all the warranty documents, I can enter the word warranty in the search field.  With a new auto-completion feature we are deploying this weekend, SafelyFiled will prompt me with likely names as I start to type warranty, so I'm covered if I don't remember if it was warranty, Warranty, warranties, or warantee.

Example of the search box auto-completion feature prompting you with the tag named warranty.

 The search will return all the documents that have the tag warranty associated with them regardless of which folder they are filed in.  So if you filed the air conditioner warranty under the "Home" or the "Financial" folders it doesn't matter.  As long as you tagged things correctly, the search will find it.

Search results for "warranty".

Tag away!

Other online services like gmail also offer tags as an organizational mechanism.  One of the advantages of digital storage is being able to classify and retrieve documents using different criteria.  Tags let you do this.  Take advantage of it!

SafelyFiled raises the bar with multiple layers of authentication

Passwords are used everywhere, but they have their limitations.  SafelyFiled has just improved security with the addition of multi-factor authentication.

In previous blogs (see Password Frustration and Password Perils), we've expressed some of the limitations of passwords.  For better or worse, passwords are the current state-of-the-practice web service authentication, but they are vulnerable to attack and not very adaptable.   Once an attacker has figured out your password, there is no way for the service that relies only on passwords to distinguish between the attacker using your password, and you using your password.

Adding Multiple Forms of ID

Multi-factor authentication can strengthen the authentication process by requiring multiple forms of ID.  Even if attackers have figured out your password, they may not be able to provide the second (and third) forms of ID.  Some security-sensitive web applications, e.g. banks and financial institutions, provide multi-factor authentication.  With our update this week, SafelyFiled now also provides its members with the option of multi-factor authentication.

May I see your ID, please?

Image credit: janmika / 123RF Stock Photo

In SafelyFiled, one form of authentication is the password and the other is a one-time access code that is sent either to your registered mobile phone number or email address.  If the attacker has figured out your password, he would still need to access your mobile phone or your email account to acquire the access code for the current login session.  This greatly increases the difficulty of  a successful attack.

Intelligent Authentication

Ideally your web application should be able to identify riskier authentication scenarios, and require multiple types of authentication in those situations.  This is like when you go to your local grocery store, the cashier recognizes you and doesn't ask for additional identification when you write a check.  But if you visit a grocery store on vacation, the cashier has never seen you before and will ask for additional identification before accepting a check from you.

With SafelyFiled you can select "Public-only" multi-factor authentication to do something similar.  If you login to SafelyFiled from a machine address that SafelyFiled hasn't seen you use before or from a machine address that you have indicated is public (like a computer at the library), then SafelyFiled will require that you enter the access code it has sent to your mobile phone or email address.  If you login from your home machine where you have logged in from many times before, SafelyFiled will not prompt you for an additional access code.  This gives you the additional safety of multi-factor authentication in riskier cases, but gives you the convenience of password-only access when logging in from a physically safer environment.

Multi-factor Options in SafelyFiled

From the "Manage Security" page, you can adjust how multi-factor authentication works for you.  The initial default stance is to "Never require access code".  We will likely change the default stance to "Only require access code for access from public machines" at some point in the future.

The controls for multi-factor options on the Manage Security page in SafelyFiled.

In addition to setting the overall policy, you can control whether the access code will be sent to your registered mobile phone or to your email address.  You can also adjust whether the address you are logged in from is public (and not to be trusted) or private (will only be used by you).  When you enter your access code from the login window, you can also click on the checkbox to indicate that the current address is to be private (or trusted) in the future.

Take advantage of Multi-factor Authentication

We strongly encourage you to signup for the "Only require access code for public machines" option.  This gives you increased protection from attackers, and has a reasonable ease of use trade-off.

Also review your other sensitive web services like bank and investment sites.  They probably have multi-factor authentication options.  Review what they offer and be sure that you take advantage of the increased security of more advanced authentication.

Password Frustration

Another password to remember!

If you're anything like me, you get very frustrated that you need to have so many different passwords at various online sites to keep your information secure.

Depending on the level of security consciousness of a website,  your password may need to be very "strong" which means you have to include a combination of upper and lower case alpha letters with numbers and maybe even a symbol or two.  Honestly, this is the model you should use for all of your online sites.   It's hard to remember a lot of passwords with this type of strong format so you may be tempted to create one password that will work at all of your sites.  But that's dangerous too.  If  that one password gets into the wrong hands, then those hands have access to everything! 

Password Perils 

 

Our own Dr Hinrichs wrote a blog about password perils earlier.  Click here to read that helpful blog.  She mentioned using password vaults to help solve this issue and that is a great solution. I personally use LastPass where I add all of my passwords and associated web links into the vault, then use one very secure master password to access all of my sites.  Even I can remember one password!  Some may be afraid of using vaults too.  But education is key to understanding that this is a very secure and viable solution.  The vault option can be made even more secure with an optional device such as the Yubico.  If you register that device to your vault, anyone trying to access your vault is also required to have that device.   These are very affordable and secure options that will greatly reduce your password frustration level, yet keep your digital resources safe.

Is the fear justified?

Every generation has a "new thing" that comes along that makes them nervous and skeptical.  When electricity was new,  many feared it was emitting dangerous rays.  The phone was feared for various reasons; the automobile,  computers; the list goes on and on.  Cloud computing is the latest new thing in our generation.

When an organization gets "hacked", it makes big news.  But honestly, how often do we hear about that happening?  Yes, some sites do get hacked, and it's usually related to a process breach, a failure to encrypt data kept on the site, or an inside job.  It's not unlike the fear of flying because of headline news coverage of a plane crash.  Yet most don't fear traveling in cars even though the likelihood of an automobile crash is many times higher.

Are you the weak link?

 

In reality,  the greatest risk to security vulnerability is ourselves.  Some of the things that many of us do can result in our data being compromised and those things include: using a weak password, allowing applications to access our Facebook accounts (to play games for example);  using unsecured free Wi-Fi hotspots; open browsing (not using https);  and downloading various applications and software from unknown sources.   In general, you don't want to access your bank account from a machine that you (or your kids) have loaded random programs and games on, or access any important site while using free internet access someplace.  And remember, email is not secure.  Never send sensitive information via email.

There are many good articles on the internet that give information regarding what steps to take to keep your information safe.  One key tip is, be sure your web browser (IE, Safari, Firefox, Chrome, etc) is set to browse in secure mode.  If you're not sure how to configure that, here's a helpful link:  How To configure my broswer.

Most Important of all!

 

Physical security!  Don't keep important documents and personal information on your computers or other mobile devices that can easily be lost or stolen. That's what SafelyFiled is for!  Not only do we require a "strong" password, we also encrypt ALL information stored on our site, which means, even IF someone could get access to the servers, they couldn't access your information. Plus, this information is kept safe from flood, fire, sink holes and other natural disasters and is backed up for you regularly so you don't have to worry if you loose a hard drive.