Real Estate Views from St Pete

This week My wonderful new Fujitsu Scansnap S1500 scanner arrived, and I love it even more than the ones that preceeded it.

For $450 you can save more time than you ever thought by not having to walk to the office scanner. This is so fast and convenient you'll want one right on your desk, and the space it takes up is about half of an 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper. Flip it up, flip it out, and in less than a second it's ready to scan a single business card or a 50 page contract.

Ever thought of having a paperless office? When I had to walk somewhere to scan something, I usually didn't do it. I'd have a folder or pile of "To Be Scanned" and somehow just never got around to it. With this Scansnap scanner, it's easy to go paperless. It scans 20 pages a minute (color or black and white), single or double-sided or mixed; business cards to oversize. You can mix sizes as well, and scan a receipt with your expense report.

• Ever been frustrated byfloor plans or surveys that are larger than 8.5 x 11? Fold it in the carrier sheet and the Scansnap will automatically merge the two sides into a single sheet.
• Back from a conference with a stack of business cards? Put the stack into the automatic document feeder, push a button, and they all go into CardMinder where you can export them into Excel or Outlook.

Find out too late that two pages in a stack of paper stuck together when they went through the machine? The new S1500 tells you when that happens - some fancy kind of sensor.

There are lots of tips on the Scansnap Community website, as well as ideas on how to use the scanner for more purposes than you may have considered.

Several years ago, when three of us were working out of a bedroom at home, complete with big copy machine, flatbed scanner, fax machine, phones, etc., I brought home my first Fujitsu Scansnap. Amy and Patricia almost in harmony wanted to know why I bought ANOTHER scanner and where I was going to put it. Don't worry about it, I replied, I'll keep it on MY desk - it won't mess up YOUR space.  It didn't take long for them to be amazed and envious, and each offered to keep it on their desk. Yes, it's that fast, that convenient, and that wonderful.

So, over the years, we added ScanSnap scanners, with the older machines going down the line, much like children's clothes are passed from one child to another. The four of us each have one at our desk, there's one on our spare desk, some of have one at home, and I have a mobile one to take with me on business travel.

After a week of working with my new Scansnap (or playing with it, if you want to be critical), I don't have a complaint. My only minor complaint on the old one was that sometimes it was hard to copy a drivers license, but the new model takes wider paper and cards, so that's no longer an issue.

Getting a tax refund or stimulus money? Buy yourself a new ScanSnap. You'll be glad you did.

p.s.  If you have the last Scansnap scanner, you really don't NEED to upgrade. The new features are Nice-To-Haves, not Need-To-Haves, unless you're a gadget geek like me. But - if you have a scanner that isn't a Scansnap, then yes, it's a Need-To-Have.