President's File
January 2010
Rob Limbaugh - President

Ah, a New Year!  Last year was fast and brought some new challenges for many of us. Not everything I set out to do in 2009 got finished, but much of it did. The year had it’s share of bucking, but in the end it was a good year for learning many new things and retouching on some things that needed some attention. Overall, I am glad and thankful for the experiences of 2009. Hope you can say the same.
DACS needs members to come forward to assist with some of the volunteer efforts:

1. The newsletter team needs at least three folks to help proofread articles;
2. The December 2009 newsletter mentioned several committees that need            volunteers;
3. Officer elections are in March 2010 and the elected officer terms will run from April 2010-March 2011. Candidates for President, Secretary, and Treasurer are needed.

This great organization exists because like-minded volunteers want to help, teach, share, and learn together. DACS turns 20 this year. This organization needs the efforts of member volunteers to keep the momentum of the group progressing forward.

2010 – Reset
I love my new Brother MFC-9840CDW ‘All-In-One’ color laser printer, scanner, and fax machine. I’m about 40% complete converting my file cabinet into Adobe PDF files. While I still like printed materials for ‘disconnected reading’, I no longer want to be keeping historical paperwork. To help push this transition I’m going to begin 2010 with ‘digital archiving’, which includes receipts, bills, and anything else that currently takes up space as paper. The MFC-9840 can scan in duplex direct to PDF on a USB key—just put a few pages in the feeder, press a few buttons, and away we go!  After I confirm the scans are good the original paper is put into a ‘shredding box’.

Why this push?  Well, I don’t want another file cabinet for one. Secondly, by going digital with that type of paperwork I can back it up remotely using a service such as Mozy or Carbonite. If my file cabinet is compromised (fire, theft, flood), I can recover the information rather than lose it all. Third, I can access the info from anywhere in the house.

I’m also making this push with other media—film in particular. Pictures, like financial documents, are hard to replace if they are not digital. Pictures also degrade over time. By digitizing them now I can take measures to preserve them and keep copies.

I guess that counts as a New Year’s resolution!

If you’re looking to get rid of clutter and/or preserve memories by digitizing and safeguarding them, let me know. Perhaps we can make a workshop of it and share experiences. There are certainly some learning curves I had to go through!

ROB LIMBAUGH
relimbaugh@dacs.org