Many years ago (8 or 9) I used a product that I was convinced was the wave of the future, and really improved my life. It was the Visioneer Paperport, and it was for the Mac exclusively. It was a very small inexpensive and fast B&W scanner that you could feed documents into, one at a time. The scanner would sense the edge of the document, automatically feed it through, and then spit it right back out. Then the software kicked in, and that was truly revolutionary for its time, and sort of mac-like. It would create a virtual desktop where you could move title and edit theses scans and then "pile" them up any way you liked. It would automatically trim the scanned pages and create a miniature icon of the scan that was proportionally sized.
I scanned everything, bills, tax documents, letters, invitations, and even my driver's liscense and signature. When I had to fill out a form, I'd scan it , type in the info and even cut and paste my signature. Then I could print it out or fax it or OCR it. It all looked very professional years before acrobat was useful. Also, unlike searching through a messy desk or file cabinet, I could search for the document like any other file and it would pop right up. The main problems with it were going to be solved soon enough. The scans were in B&W only, so it had trouble with complex color pages which were appearing more and more. Also, the scans ate up scarce storage at the time, which would NOT be a problem now. Sure, the scanner jammed on occasion, but it was cheap.
Maybe too cheap. Visioneer started to get in financial trouble, Apple's market share was shrinking, and the company panicked and completely dumped mac support entirely. I know they came out with the color "strobe" scanner, and updated their software for the PC, but I didn't use a PC. I think the company continued to lose its momentum. They are still around, maybe they are doing well. The Visioneer website lists lots of scanners but none for the mac.
I really miss having that scanner and, even more so, the software. I was much more organized back then. Are there any adequate replacements for a mac user? I suppose I could get a one-touch flatbed scanner and use the OS X folder and file system, but it's just not the same. The whole point was that it was so fast and automatic that it was almost second nature. I really miss that damn thing. Any other ideas besides than buying a PC? (or using Virtual PC which is too cumbersome.)
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