The Importance of Document Imaging

Document imaging involves converting paper documents into electronic images. These images need further processing to make them into true electronic documents. This is because any text in the image, while readable by humans, is not readable as text characters by computer systems.

Hence the images need further processing using technologies such as Optical Character Recognition - OCR - to make the text characters machine-readable.
This article explores why document imaging has become so important in today's business environment.

Significance of Document Imaging for Document and Record Management
In industries like healthcare and insurance, the volume of paper documents generated in the course of business is huge in volume. Much of these paper documents also need to be stored as records for business and compliance purposes.

The solution of earlier days, of sorting the paper documents, filing them in paper folders, and storing the folders in filing cabinets, would be highly impractical.

An army of filing clerks would be needed to sort, file, and store the paper documents. Many important documents are quite likely to be misfiled and become "untraceable". The filing room is likely to be a chaotic place with overflowing contents.

To retrieve a paper, people might have to pull out a number of files, go through many (or all) of them, and at the end, the document might not be found at all.

Many of the documents are likely to be in poor physical condition even originally. Stored in the above conditions, they are also likely to become completely illegible and useless.

It's in this context that document imaging becomes significant. Documents are scanned and processed with OCR immediately or soon after receipt. With today's advanced scanners and OCR technology, excellent images of even illegible paper documents can be obtained, and the data can be validated, formatted, and stored under relevant categories.
It then becomes possible for staff to access the documents without moving from their workstations. They can retrieve any electronic document in minutes from the system's central server, even if they were located in a distant office.

In an environment where the system reliably ensures that all paper documents are scanned and processed on receipt, staff can even shred the paper documents once they are done with it. Such shredding would save on the labor, space, and other costs of storing the paper documents in filing cabinets in a filing room.

This new environment would also provide employees far greater job satisfaction than the earlier one of low productivity routines and musty filing rooms.

Modern Equipment
Today's scanners can work with illegible, odd shaped, awkwardly inserted, physically damaged, and other kinds of paper documents and produce images that are better than the originals.

Then there is equipment to extract documents from envelopes, and scan and process the documents into machine-readable electronic content with minimal human intervention.
Document management software can handle these initial steps and go on to manage the entire lifecycle of the captured documents.

Conclusion
The huge volumes of paper documents generated by certain industries in today's businesses make it impracticable to handle them with the earlier filing cabinet and filing room solutions. Instead, document-imaging solutions allow scanning the paper documents, and processing the resultant images with character recognition technologies, to convert them into acceptable electronic documents. This solution also has the advantage of allowing staff to access the documents from their workstations, instead of having to go to a musty filing room and pull out a lot of dusty files and then try to locate a particular document that might have become fully illegible.

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Replacing Windows Regedit

There are numerous third-party alternatives to practically every tool available with Windows. Scandisk is superseded with various data recovery tools that are vastly superior to the quite limited Windows tool; Outlook Express isn't any better than any other email client on the market; Windows Task Manager has a number of free and commercial alternatives. Even Internet Explorer has a number of third-party replacements that offer better security and more features. Regedit is no exception to the trend.

Reg Organizer is a vastly superior alternative to Windows Regedit. Unlike direct product replacements such as FireFox - Internet Explorer or Thunderbird - Outlook Express, Reg Organizer dips into waters not tested by any Microsoft tool.

Instead of just cloning Microsoft Regedit feature by feature, Reg Organizer provides numerous benefits to its users, unseen in any Microsoft registry tool. Not only it can edit the Windows Registry; it can find errors and fix them automatically. By cleaning out the Registry, Reg Organizer vastly improves the performance of your PC. It reduces the clutter, removes junk and makes your Registry more compact, allowing Windows run faster and smoother.

All of these optimization features don't look like Reg Organizer is a direct replacement of Windows Regedit, but hold on! Unlike the numerous competing registry optimizers, Reg Organizer actually serves as a replacement to the primitive registry editor included with Windows. Giving its users a way to conveniently edit Windows Registry, Reg Organizer provides all browsing and editing features available in Regedit, and more! Unlike the minimalistic Regedit tool, Reg Organizer offers a fully featured graphical user interface for performing basic and advanced manipulations with the computer System Registry.

Vastly superior searching makes searching the Registry much more convenient than with Windows Regedit. Searching the Registry is where Reg Organizer shines. Not only it scans the Registry as regedit.exe does, but it allows many more things to be done when searching. You can find all registry keys related to a certain application, or run Search and Replace to substitute certain registry values with other ones. Search and Replace Registry comes handy when moving applications from one disk or folder to another, letting you change paths quickly and easily.

Managing the Registry does not end with editing, searching and replacing. Set Reg Organizer to handle .REG files, and you'll be able to actually preview the .REG files before or instead of importing them into the System Registry. Defragment and compress Windows Registry to optimize computer performance, change undocumented Windows settings without the risk of messing up the Registry, and do many other exciting things you would never do with regedit.exe! Download Reg Organizer from http://www.chemtable.com/organizer.htm.

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Protect Your Work | Lock Your Computer

Anyone who has put in many hours, or at times even weeks of effort into work, may know what its like to lose a part of that work, but the worst thing you can do is to be the cause of your own loss. When you leave your computer, lets say for a bathroom break, an emergency meeting, or even to discuss something away from your machine, it may be natural to just walk away and do what you have to do, but I know from experience that this is a habit you should engrave into your computer work ethic just the same as being polite to the CEO of your organization. Allow me to go deeper, it will make more sense by example:

A few years ago, I took a course called 'Drafting/Design Tech I'. This was a basic CAD (Computer-Aided-Design) class where we learned how to use the software and along the way, the concepts of good CAD-work, understanding of views, and being able to draw anything we saw in any variation. It was a good experience. One of the few things my instructor told the class immediately after explaining how to log in with our user accounts was to lock our computers.

"Hold down the 'windows' button, and push 'L'. This will lock your computer and protect your work."

Now why would you want protection? Look at condoms and you'll see why...Okay, so you won't get AID's if you don't lock your computer, but those of us who didn't heed the advice of my instructor learned the hard way to lock it up. By good nature, lots of us used to love to walk over to each other's workstations and talk, hang out, and mess around. By the time we came back, one of several things generally happened to our computers:

1. Our directories were cleared out of any and all work we had in them (hours, or rather weeks of hours, of racking your head over something has just gone down the drain), or
2. Our current drawing file was modified (i.e. a few lines being offset, stretched and skewed, thereby throwing off all dimensions, which is especially bad when being graded on dimensions. Even worse is when somebody scales your entire project, so when you actually build a model of your project, instead of a 1/8 scale between the model and full-size, you have a 19/128ths scale. Firsthand experience sucks.)
3. All of our file names were mixed and mismatched, so when we sat down to work, we faced the unique issue of figuring out each time which of the twenty files is which. Lots of fun when you have an upcoming deadline.
4. Any other creative mischief (i.e. turning the screen by 90 degrees, making windows look retro, or even hiding parts of our drawings so they appear deleted and we appear to be redoing it when we come back)

Besides an annoyance ranging from mild all the way up to a promise of an a$s-kicking after class, locking your computer is important for security. From my experience with multiple private networks, leaving your console unattended while in full access can cause many problems for you and the network. One of your peers with lesser access rights may decide to play a joke on another and it doesn't turn out funny to the one it was being played on. He reports it to his boss. If the 'joke' was in any way decided as unacceptable by the boss, guess which two guys lose their jobs? Or even better if there is a visitor from somewhere and suddenly he has access to all of the top-secret files which are sworn by all employees to only stay on facility? Let me express it in one word: espionage. A car just doesn't sell as well when every other major car-maker sells exact knock-offs of it because some idiot in your business left the designs and assembly plans in easy access.

Windows Button + L

OR

Alt+Ctrl+Delete , then 'k'

For this to work, you must have a password set on your account. If your account is not password-protected, here is how to make it so:

(All instructions assume that the user has full administrative access rights)

For Windows XP:

1) Click on the 'Start' menu
2) Click on 'Control Panel'
3) Double-Click on 'User Accounts'
4) Click on your user account name
5) Click on 'Create a Password'
6) Follow the on-screen instructions

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What is Java?

ava is a highly portable computer programming language. "Portable" is a term used to describe programs that can be run in many different computing environments and on many different "platforms" (MS Windows, Apple's Mac OS, Solaris, and Linux are all examples of "platforms")

It is Java's portability that makes it such an intriguing technology. To give you an example of how this portability relates to real world features and benefits, let's say you have a program that is written in Java such as a web browser. Normally, with a web browser application, the user is bound to the settings for the browser application and the configuration of the machine that they are using it on. So, at the office, the machine on Joe User's desktop has one set of bookmarks, plug ins, security setting, etc. Joe's machine at home will most likely have a different set of bookmarks, plug ins and settings. Now, let's say Joe want to have a more consistent experience with the computers that he uses everyday. Joe could install a Java-based browser on removable writable media (such as a floppy diskette, pen drive, zip disk or CDRW) and carry his browser with him (with all the settings, bookmarks and plug ins in tow as well!)

Java is not only portable, but it is also widely known, and does not need to be interpreted (like PHP, Java script and some other and other languages). Java also does not have to be compiled on the machine it will be run on. Java can be compiled once and run in its binary form on many systems. Although there are other languages out there that are extremely portable, there are few that could stand up to Java's "compile once, run everywhere" functionality. Java is truly a useful and feature rich programming language and is used to program many software programs on the market today.

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Fix Windows Registry Errors

The most important reason your should fix Windows Registry errors as they occur is that this the one single preventative measure can greatly increase the life-expectancy of your Windows system by stabilizing the growth of its Registry.

Prevention is Key!

It is a fact of Windows that trying to fix Registry problems after they occur is much more difficult than preventing their occurrence in the first place. So when it comes to the Windows Registry, the motto should always be "prevention is key!" This is because it is often the most common and abundant types of errors that wind up killing Registries, especially those caused by a system's registered applications, users, and even Windows itself. As new applications are installed and old applications are removed, and as registered applications continue accessing and changing Registry data, they often leave small bits of themselves behind as orphaned registry entries.

By themselves, these errors will probably not reveal themselves in any degradation of speed or normal Windows functions, especially if your system is new. But if these errors are allowed to accumulate for a very long time, they can greatly increase a Registry's size and wreak havoc on the overall structure and stability of its database. And for a fast-growing Registry, even small error accumulations can quickly send your Registry's database structure out of control. If you don't fix these Windows Registry errors often, your system can very easily fall victim to sudden crashes, system stalls, or a severe decrease in operating speed. It is particularly at risk if you frequently install or uninstall applications and hardware, since these actions increase the Registry's rate of growth further by adding more registered components, orphaned Registry entries, and undeleted drivers to your system.

Registry Repair Utilities

Once you have made the decision to fix Windows Registry errors on your system, you will need to know something about how to go about it. Although some versions of Windows provide built-in background system utilities designed to maintain Registry structure and stability, these utilities only address the most basic Registry problems in the most primitive ways, making them insufficient when a Registry becomes very large and complicated. However, there are many third-party Windows Registry repair utilities available on the Internet that are inexpensive and easy to use. For general maintenance and prevention purposes, Combination Repair/Cleaning utilities are perfect. They are effective in finding and removing errors caused by invalid references, viruses, and spyware/tracking programs, and usually have other features, like Registry defragmenting and backup/restore utilities and scanning schedules, that make it very easy to maintain your computer's health and optimize its performance.

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Linux Is An Alternative Operating System

"Linux" is an alternative, "open source" operating system. It is "alternative" because it runs on the same hardware that the market share leader (Microsoft Windows) runs on, "open source" because it is not only freely obtained (via various channels such as online downloads, free CDs that come with magazines and books, etc...), but also because it's source code (the actual computer instructions that make the software work) is also freely accessible and modifiable.

The fact that Linux is freely available for anyone to obtain and tinker with has been a boon for the adoption and use of Linux with computer enthusiasts, geeks, nerds and the like. These enthusiasts like the fact that the code is right there in front of them for them to change to their needs. A competent programmer, even a hobbyist, can customize Linux to their needs to a much more refined level than they could with MS Windows, Apple's Mac OS, and even other more proprietary flavors of UNIX.

There is a very active and thriving developer community surrounding Linux. There are literally thousands of websites out there devoted to the subject matter. All sorts of knowledge bases, forums, chat rooms and message boards are dedicated to the goings on in the Linux and open source community.

Another excellent facet of the Linux community is the fact that the majority of the software applications written for the operating system is also made available with the same "open source" license, which means that an enthusiast (or a professional for that matter) can build and customize a Linux system that is perfectly tailored to their needs with little to no investment beyond the initial purchase of the hardware.

A sound studio engineer, for example, could build a Linux machine that has been custom tailored to run the effects on a sound board or to function as a recording device for digital audio, while a graphic artist may build a machine that has been built from the ground up to be an efficient design machine.

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It's Linux, Not Lennox.

Lennox is a global corporation specializing in air conditioning, heating, and commercial refrigeration. Dave Lennox helped to develop what has been described as the first riveted-steel furnace in 1895.

His "machine" having come a long way is amazing in it's own right, but it is not necessarily suited for business productivity. While it is surely compatible with outsourced services, Old Dave's Lennox may not readily lend itself to remote helpdesk or repair over the internet.
Linux, on the other hand, is a Unix-like computer operating system which not only fully lends itself to remote helpdesk, outsourced IT services, and computer repair over the internet, but can also be used to accomplish those tasks.

Unlike Lennox hardware, Linux is one of the most prominent examples of free software and open source development; its underlying source code can be freely modified, used, and redistributed by anyone (try that with Lennox).

Although it had already been around a few years, the Linux kernel was first released to the public 17 September 1991, for the Intel x86 PC architecture.
The kernel was augmented with system utilities and libraries from the GNU project to create a usable operating system, which later led to an alternate term, GNU/Linux.  
Linux is now packaged for different uses in Linux distributions, which contain the sometimes modified kernel along with a variety of other software packages tailored to different requirements.

Predominantly known for its use in servers, Linux in gaining more and more popularity as a desktop operating system garnering the support of corporations such as IBM, Sun Microsystems, Dell, Hewlett-Packard and Novell.

It is used as an operating system for a wide variety of computer hardware, including desktop computers, supercomputers, video game systems (PlayStation 2 and 3 for example) and embedded devices such as mobile phones and routers most if not all of which lend themselves readily to repair over the internet, outsourced repair and even remote helpdesk services.

1960ish: A computer operating system known as UNIX was conceived.
1970: UNIX was released and widely used, modified and improved by business, academia, and the government .
1984; Richard Stallman quits his job at MIT and starts working on the GNU Project.
1985: Free Software Foundation, an organization for creating and promoting free software, is founded by Richard Stallman.

The GNU manifesto, a statement by Richard Stallman advocating the cause of free software movement, is published in the March 1985 issue of Dr. Dobb's Journal
1991: MINIX was written from scratch by Andrew S. Tanenbaum, a US-born Dutch professor who wanted to teach his students the inner workings of a real operating system. It was designed to run on the Intel 8086 microprocessors that had flooded the world market.

MINIX was by no stretch of the imagination a supberb operating system. But for the first time the source code was available. Anyone who happened to get the book 'Operating Systems: Design and Implementation' by Tanenbaum could get hold of the 12,000 lines of code, written in C and assembly language. For the first time, an aspiring programmer or hacker could read the source codes of the operating system, which to that time the software vendors had guarded vigorously.

Following in quick succession, Linux was first envisaged by a a second year student of Computer Science at the University of Helsinki and a self-taught hacker, Linus Torvalds. At the time it was just another hackers hobby. But from the humble Intel 386 machine of Linus that ran the first kernel, Linux has come a long way. Its most notable use now is in the field of massively parallel supercomputing clusters.

Version 0.01 is released on the Internet in September.

1992:
January: First Linux Newsgroup: alt.os.linux founded in the UseNet
April: Ari Lemmke starts the popular Linux newsgroup comp.os.linux in the UseNet
November: Adam Richter announces the release of the first Linux Distribution from his company: Yggdrasil

1993:
June: Slackware, the famous Linux distribution is released by Peter Volkerding
August: Matt Welsh releases Linux Installation and getting started: version 1
1994: Linux kernel version 1.0 is released in March.

While Lennox has several models, Linux has many more. And even though Lennox has been around a lot longer (you know Dave Lennox died in 1947), Linux has achieved between 50-80% market share of the web server, render farm, and supercomputer markets and is growing daily on desktops a feat even old Dave couldn't pull off.

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