From time to time I like to share paperless success stories that DocumentSnap readers share. This one is from a reader who would like to stay anonymous, so I’ll call him Mr. X. He wanted to share how he found success going paperless, and share how he created his own private cloud to store and access his documents.
Take it away, Mr. X!
Some Paperless Encouragement
I have 2 things to relate. The first is a word of encouragement for those starting the paperless trail.
I started the paperless trail several years back with many large boxes of papers to scan from 2 businesses.
Although the initial process seemed overwhelming it wasn’t long before they were all scanned where today I can keep up with the paper scanning quickly and easily and takes no more than a few minutes to clear my pile down each day.
It has become a habit. I have a 4 year old ScanSnap S1500 (Note from Brooks: the latest model is the iX500).
Creating My Personal Private Cloud
The second has to do with security and our personal documents.
After seeing your article on getting your documents out of Evernote, I thought I might suggest a different route than what you have recommended in the past.
I installed an open source software called ownCloud to load my documents into.
Using the free app on my phone/tablet and my other computers, my documents are synced across them all in real time.
The best thing in my opinion is that I have control over them. In today’s world I don’t think it is prudent to have anything on third-party servers. There is no expectation of privacy or changing conditions.
Granted it does take a little work to set up, but it is not complicated and it works very well. I have used that system for a couple years now with no issues.
It goes without saying that if you open your ownCloud instance to the web you need to have good firewall/antivirus and malware protection. You can always keep ownCloud within your private network and it will sync whenever you are on the same. Of course regular backups are a necessity for any document storage.
Thank you Mr. X! Glad to hear about your paperless success, and you are not the only DocumentSnap reader having success with ownCloud. If you’re not comfortable storing your documents on a third party server, it is a solid option.
