In an era of information overload, managing contact info can be difficult. Memorizing phone numbers is a thing of the past, possibly because there are so many types of numbers to memorize — from home, to business, to cell to even fax — or because there are so many people to keep in touch with these days.
And besides just the phone numbers, there are also the e-mails and websites and other information to worry about. With each business you come into contact with having their own website, and each person from that business having their own e-mail, it gets somewhat difficult to keep track of it all. Of course, that’s why these businesses and employees have business cards. Easy to lose, business cards provide invaluable information that would come in handy — if only you could find your collection of cards.
But that’s why, in these troubled times of contact management, products like CardScan are available.CardScan allows businesses or individuals to digitally store the information found on business cards in an easy to access database, thereby allowing them to throw the business cards into a drawer or even through the shredder afterwards. This may sounds like a dangerous practice, discarding valuable and tangible contact info in exchange for a digital file that could easily be lost, compromised or corrupted, but with the easy-to-use CardScan layout and its numerous backup features, it might be time to round up all those stray business cards lingering around and get rid of them. After scanning them and saving them into your collection, of course.
The CardScan device comes in a variety of forms ranging from CardScan Personal, which is the smallest and most affordable of the products and is aimed at independent users, to CardScan Team, which is more of an integrated office solution for large groups of employees. The device we tested was the CardScan Personal, ideal for individual employees of a business, those who are self-employed, or those who deal with mass numbers of people (with business cards) on a regular basis and want to sort past and present contacts.
The product itself is fairly small, roughly 80mm x115mm, and is easily portable thanks to the handy travel bag that comes with it. When I first received the device, I thought that it might be battery-operated, with its own memory bank, allowing for business types to give me their cards so I could quickly scan and return them. Not so, apparently. The device is powered completely by USB and has no internal storage, so it essentially just a very specialized scanner. Don’t let that detract from the value of CardScan, however, because what it does, it does extremely well.
After installing the software, a process that took less than 10 minutes, the CardScan should be ready to plug in. There is an arrow that is back-lit in blue on the inside. This changes to orange once a card is detected or being scanned. Scanning time is advertised to be less than five seconds but that doesn’t include data to be processing. In our tests, a single sided of a card could be scanned and processed in about 15 seconds.
Next: Character recognitionCharacter recognition
The Card Scan does optical character recognition (OCR) to convert printed text in data than can be manipulated. It’s not perfectly accurate, but it’s usually close. Some business card fonts or symbols may not be recognized, but standard fonts and letters are input without a problem, generally in the field that they belong to as well. Business cards of a more digital nature such as attachments or signatures in email, can be easily highlighted and dragged over the CardScan interface.
While any information scanned does go into the database and get sorted alphabetically (or in any other way you prefer), each new addition is assigned a verification rating once scanned. Every item will start off as unverified, and it will be up to the user to check each piece of information before checking off the “Verified” button, which will take away the dark question mark beside the entry. If there is no question mark, that will mean that the information within is to be taken as fact, so be alert when checking information just in case any additional info needed to be added.
Also, the opacity of the question mark indicates how much verification is required. A dark question mark will mean that the CardScan may have had a hard time reading the card, or much of the information was missing, whereas a grey question mark may just mean that the verification checkbox still needs to be ticked, but that the information is more or less accurate. The contact information in the database can also be exported to a variety of handheld devices and cell phones.
CardScan also offers to back up your contact lists for free online using At Your Service. The backup site, run and operated by CardScan, is simple, easy to use, and free. It’s an ideal way of maintaining access to contact lists in the event that you want to travel light and don’t have the option of using a PDA or smartphone. Plus it can check for updates for your contacts, making sure that all of your contact information is accurate and up to date.
The CardScan software is loaded with features from “one-click” e-mail, which makes it easy to mass e-mail select contacts, to labelling and printing options allowing you to print out contact labels or replacement cards, making this much more than a simple card scanning product.
And besides just the phone numbers, there are also the e-mails and websites and other information to worry about. With each business you come into contact with having their own website, and each person from that business having their own e-mail, it gets somewhat difficult to keep track of it all. Of course, that’s why these businesses and employees have business cards. Easy to lose, business cards provide invaluable information that would come in handy — if only you could find your collection of cards.
But that’s why, in these troubled times of contact management, products like CardScan are available.CardScan allows businesses or individuals to digitally store the information found on business cards in an easy to access database, thereby allowing them to throw the business cards into a drawer or even through the shredder afterwards. This may sounds like a dangerous practice, discarding valuable and tangible contact info in exchange for a digital file that could easily be lost, compromised or corrupted, but with the easy-to-use CardScan layout and its numerous backup features, it might be time to round up all those stray business cards lingering around and get rid of them. After scanning them and saving them into your collection, of course.
The CardScan device comes in a variety of forms ranging from CardScan Personal, which is the smallest and most affordable of the products and is aimed at independent users, to CardScan Team, which is more of an integrated office solution for large groups of employees. The device we tested was the CardScan Personal, ideal for individual employees of a business, those who are self-employed, or those who deal with mass numbers of people (with business cards) on a regular basis and want to sort past and present contacts.
The product itself is fairly small, roughly 80mm x115mm, and is easily portable thanks to the handy travel bag that comes with it. When I first received the device, I thought that it might be battery-operated, with its own memory bank, allowing for business types to give me their cards so I could quickly scan and return them. Not so, apparently. The device is powered completely by USB and has no internal storage, so it essentially just a very specialized scanner. Don’t let that detract from the value of CardScan, however, because what it does, it does extremely well.
After installing the software, a process that took less than 10 minutes, the CardScan should be ready to plug in. There is an arrow that is back-lit in blue on the inside. This changes to orange once a card is detected or being scanned. Scanning time is advertised to be less than five seconds but that doesn’t include data to be processing. In our tests, a single sided of a card could be scanned and processed in about 15 seconds.
Next: Character recognitionCharacter recognition
The Card Scan does optical character recognition (OCR) to convert printed text in data than can be manipulated. It’s not perfectly accurate, but it’s usually close. Some business card fonts or symbols may not be recognized, but standard fonts and letters are input without a problem, generally in the field that they belong to as well. Business cards of a more digital nature such as attachments or signatures in email, can be easily highlighted and dragged over the CardScan interface.
While any information scanned does go into the database and get sorted alphabetically (or in any other way you prefer), each new addition is assigned a verification rating once scanned. Every item will start off as unverified, and it will be up to the user to check each piece of information before checking off the “Verified” button, which will take away the dark question mark beside the entry. If there is no question mark, that will mean that the information within is to be taken as fact, so be alert when checking information just in case any additional info needed to be added.
Also, the opacity of the question mark indicates how much verification is required. A dark question mark will mean that the CardScan may have had a hard time reading the card, or much of the information was missing, whereas a grey question mark may just mean that the verification checkbox still needs to be ticked, but that the information is more or less accurate. The contact information in the database can also be exported to a variety of handheld devices and cell phones.
CardScan also offers to back up your contact lists for free online using At Your Service. The backup site, run and operated by CardScan, is simple, easy to use, and free. It’s an ideal way of maintaining access to contact lists in the event that you want to travel light and don’t have the option of using a PDA or smartphone. Plus it can check for updates for your contacts, making sure that all of your contact information is accurate and up to date.
The CardScan software is loaded with features from “one-click” e-mail, which makes it easy to mass e-mail select contacts, to labelling and printing options allowing you to print out contact labels or replacement cards, making this much more than a simple card scanning product.
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