With our newly launched facebook page and v2.1 attracting much attention, we make a lot of assumptions that people understand why they would use electronic filing in the home. But we've quickly realised that this isn't necessarily true. So without further ado, here are what we feel to be the three key reasons why:

1. Space Saving
With post (general correspondence, bills, statements etc) still arriving daily to almost every household there will come a point when a decision needs to be made on what to keep and what not to keep because space in the home filing system is at a premium. Naturally, we make the assumption that the newest documents will have the most relevant information on so a cull will begin on older documents, but at what point should the cull begin? By scanning and keeping an electronic copy of each document on your computer would it matter where in your filing system the cull occurred, as long as you had the information you needed and saved space?

2. Easy Access
A common response to the idea of space saving is "I have a loft/garage/shed/some space in a mates flat..." which is a perfectly fair response that can certainly overcome any immediate storage issues . But what happens if you need information from one of the documents that you've put out of the way? Is it readily accessible when you need it? You could be on the phone arranging car insurance in need of accident history to complete the process - you'll have to go in search of the information and call back later - time consuming and cumbersome; You could be talking to your utilities provider - now what was your account number from the previous supplier? Is that really better than having the information you need only a keypress or three away?

3. Peace of Mind
As compelling as the first two points are, for some people, the idea of recording ever bit of paper, every document, receipt etc provides a peace of mind that can't be ignored. We can pretend that bad things don't happen (such as floods, fire etc) or we can do our very best to ensure that any disruption caused by such events is as minimal as it can be. Now no one is saying that file@home can prevent your house from flooding - but, it could prevent you losing valuable information should your original documents be totally destroyed. Thankfully, many of us won't experience such disasters - but the duplication of documents and the information which they contain does afford some comfort in that the information will not be lost forever. It could be considered a modern day equivalent of photocopying documents and placing the original in the firesafe "just in case".


So that's what we believe to be the three key reasons why you would adopt a system such as file@home for home filing; (we'd have to point out here that these aren't mutually exclusive either, our experience shows that people will generally cite two or even all three reasons for their personal decision to use file@home)

Do you have different reasons though? We'd love to hear from you if you do, so please email us or leave a message in the comments.

Labels: file at home, home filing, reasons, why

There's something quite unsurprising, yet thoroughly annoying about discovering an issue with your product that only exists on the MD's laptop!!

Our MD has clocked up more usage on file@home than anyone we know; he's been using it since it was FileIT 0.1 (our alpha code), so it's not actually that surprising that his historical database had a few "issues", and ones we would not have been able to replicate in testing, because we didn't know that it could happen in the first place!

After a multitude of "debug" builds, we've pinned down the offending section of code, given it a sound thrashing and told it that if it should ever fail to report errors correctly again it'll be decompiled and deleted for ever; that'll learn it ;o)

The latest update is available now on the web site, and from the update feature within the program itself - chances are you'll have never noticed that the problem was there - now we've made certain.

On a different note, if you haven't noticed, you can follow us on twitter these days too. We're using this more frequently than any other platform at the minute so why not follow us (we do tend to wander off topic a little, but it's all good fun)

Until our next exciting installment.

Labels: changes, fixed, home filing, updates, v2

After what seems like an age, we're finally ready to roll with file@home v2 and to say we're chuffed about this release would be an understatement!!

The bulk of the code has been ready for some time, but we've been putting it through some serious testing to make sure there are no surprises for our customers when they start to download/install/upgrade etc.

So, what's changed. Well, in a word everything. Long time users will notice that the program is functionally very much the same as the first releases - which from a usability point of view is great, if you've used the previous version, then you can use this version straight away! Obviously there's the mandatory 'coat of paint' that all new releases get, but underneath the code is more compact, neater and all round faster than before so you can get things done much quicker.

The biggest new features are the Reminders and the Monitor. When you add documents now you can choose to set a reminder so that when a certain date arrives, guess what? yep, you'll get a reminder. There's a handy pre-defined list and the option to set your own details too. The reminders go hand in hand with the Monitor as this lets you access all the details without having to open them main file@home program! It'll also show popup's when you start your computer and when you click the icon in the task bar.

The help file is vastly improved too (for those that need a little helping hand) and it's been re-written as a PDF which makes finding content much easier.

So, what are you waiting for? It's ready for download on our site now on the downloads page. Post in the forum if you have any issues, queries or comments.

Enjoy!

Labels: document management, filing, home filing, v2