If you use a computer, you should really make an effort to backup all of your files. When you are on your computer and working on a file you should back up the file that you are working on every fifteen minutes. When you are finished working and preparing to shut off your computer you should backup your entire file to your backup system. Traditionally the way the average person has always used to backup their important data files has been to copy the file to a CD, but recently there has been an increase in people using online methods for data backup.

If you have never thought about using an online method for backing up your data files you should take a few minutes to consider the advantages.

The Advantages of Online Data Storage

One of the best things about online backup is that you can access the files from anywhere and at anytime. This is especially nice if you need to access a work file during a period of time when your office is closed and you are working on your personal computer

People who regularly use an online storage method for their important data files love the fact that they can access the files from any computer. This is really handy when your own computer is in the shop or if you use multiple computers.

Sometimes when you store a computer file to a CD you aren’t able to make any changes to the file. You can open the file and view the information but if you need to amend the file you have to download the information to your hard drive and than burn a new copy of the file to a different CD. When you use an online storage method you can always make changes to your files.

It’s a really good feeling to know that even if your hard drive crashes and burns your files are not only safe but that you can get to them easily on a different computer.

The Downside to Online Data Storage

The biggest drawback to online data backup is that if order to access your files you have to be able to connect to the internet. If you know that you are going to need to access on of your data files and suspect that you aren’t going to be able to connect to the internet than you should make sure that you have copied the file to a CD or flash drive and make sure that you tuck the backup in your computer bag. Make sure that your disk in a case to protect it from scratches and dust.

Most of us have sworn that we will never go back to using our old film cameras now that we have started using a digital camera. The digital cameras are just so nice. The best part about them is that we no longer have to pay to develop a roll of film only to discover that the pictures we took were terrible.

Even thought the digital camera is one of the trendiest gadgets available today, that doesn’t mean that digital cameras aren’t without flaws. We have a tendency to take a whole bunch of photos and then leave them on the hard drive of our computers. This takes up a great deal of our computers memory. One of the most confusing things about the digital photos is how we end up with so many duplicate copies of the photos.

How We Get Duplicate Images

The reason that most of us get so many duplicate photos is that, since we don’t have to worry about developing the film, we take lots of photos of one thing. We figure that we will keep the best photo and delete the ones that didn’t turn out quite as nice. The problem is that it can be hard to see all of the photo’s features in your camera’s LCD screen so you transfer all of the photos to your computer where you know that the large screen will make it easier to select the best shot.

The problem is that when you upload your duplicate images from your digital camera to your computer it can sometimes be very difficult to figure our where the duplicate images have gone.

Until recently the only way to find your duplicate photos was to spend hours on your computer, slowly picking your way through photo after photo and moving the ones you wanted to keep to their very own individual file. Not only was this project time consuming it was also mind numbing.

A Better Solution

The good news is that there is an easier way to sort through your duplicate images. All you have to do is purchase some image comparison software. After you install the software onto your computer it will scan your digital photos for you and automatically store all the similar photos in one file that you will be able to find easily the next time you want to work with your pictures.

Digital comparison software is simple, easy to use, and won’t take up a large portion of your computer’s hard drive.

Although you will have to pay for the software, the amount of time that you save sorting through and organizing your digital photos will justify the cost.

In the aftermath of the economic downturn that has been wrecking commercial interests all over the world, the US mortgage industry is realizing better ways to propel itself into a more organized and effective working mannerism. Mortgage lenders have been forced to take a serious look at the functionality and induce methods that can substantially reduce costs and increase their chances of success in mortgage-related legal predicaments such as handling foreclosures.

Efficient Mortgage Processing — homeowners often demand that the lender provides original documents that contain the financial history and a list of any financially obligations related to the concerned property. Typical documents that are often demanded by prospective property buyers include documents detailing the sale/resale history and securities. Securities are the original legal note that bears the signature of the homeowner. These are often difficult to locate if the property has been sold/resold numerous times over a period.

The simplest solution lies in scanning such security notes and electronically storing them in the form of scanned images. This also helps to negate the costs that are often incurred in extracting original documents from government warehouses — a process that is time consuming and could create a time gap during which a home buyer’s interest can be lost.

Handling Faster Turnarounds — many mortgage companies are now projecting themselves as being able to provide a quicker turnaround time (for mortgage processing). To make this a reality, it is vital that a major portion of post-loan documentation is conducted via transmitting/accessing records that have been electronically saved. A faster workflow process means that the customer is given lesser time to think away from his funding decision and the loan is quickly executed, i.e. giving the customer lesser time to reconsider his decision.

There is another aspect of benefiting from faster mortgage operations. Thousands of smaller brokers depend upon sending loan applications to be funded by larger, established lenders. Many times, a broker submits the same application to numerous mortgage companies. Whosoever responds first, is the one that gets to handle the portfolio. Companies that have PDF-based operations stand to gain substantially, since their turnaround time would be drastically lesser than that of conventional mortgage firms.

Handling Mortgage Foreclosures — it has been confirmed that judges are willing to view electronic documentation for foreclosure arguments. Lenders and nj real estate attorney who can provide paperwork in the form of PDF files for quickly overviewing the documentation are able to establish that they are still holding on to the loan.

Nearly 2.3 million homeowners have faced foreclosure proceedings last year and even more are on the verge of losing their homes in the current fiscal.

Inability to present the demanded records is the primary reason why many mortgage-servicing companies are unable to support their foreclosure arguments in the court. Lack of the original Note alone counts for about 40% of the foreclosure proceedings that went against the contesting mortgage companies. ‘Produce-the-Note’ demand wherein lenders have been asked to locate paperwork that simply cannot be traced can single-handedly delay a foreclosure for about 10-to-12 months. Often, the apprehension related to the time wastage in digging-up conventionally stored documents is used as a pressure tactic against the lender, forcing him to renegotiate his conditions for the mortgage — an apparently insignificant aspect regarding the storage medium of mortgage documents can directly hamper the profitability of a mortgage deal for the lender.

Paperless Medium — it is easy-to-comprehend that an increased use of accessing/sharing mortgage records and processing documents that have been scanned and saved as PDF files means a gradual shift towards a paperless environment. This means direct, daily cost savings. Being paperless, i.e. adopting an electronic documentation format through the scanning of paper records means:
• Using a central, secured, electronic mortgage information storehouse that can be accessed from remote locations and shared with mortgage partners like third-party vendors.
• Presenting prospective customers with a more organized and transparent process — removing the fear of fraudulent dealings from a customer’s mindset
• Reduced processing charges due to removal of paper shipment, storage (warehousing) costs and expenditures caused due to manual filing and copying.
• Presence of standardized loan folders containing the scanned files reduces chances of misplacing important documents.
• The opportunity to perform quicker, performance-linked, analytical electronic audits.
• Eliminating document copying requirements and manual file search — resulting in quicker retrieval of desired documents.

No doubt you have heard about solid state drives (commonly abbreviated, SSD). So you might be wondering what are they and is it important that I get one. Well in basic terms a solid state drive is exactly what the name implies, a hard drive that carries no moving parts. A regular hard drive is made up of a bunch of disks (about the size of compact disks) that spin at high speeds (average between 5400rpm and 7200rpm) which allows you to store information as well as read and write to the device. On the other hand a solid state drive carries none of these moving parts.

Advantages

Now the advantages of a solid state drive can be great or not so great depending on what your requirements are. Generally speaking, it’s harder for your information to be lost on a solid state drive because it carries no moving parts, thus if you should drop your device (in this case a netbook, notebook or desktop), your hard drive will still be in tact. Another advantage is the fact that solid state drives use less power and so are much better for power consumption in mobile systems (like netbooks and notebooks) then regular hard disk drives (HDD). Since the SSD use RAM like memory modules to store its information, the battery does not have to work very hard to keep spinning the hard disks it would have to do had it been a regular hard disk drive.

Another great advantage is the speed of SSD’s. They are much faster because their technology is similar to random access memory (RAM) in that they can be written to and from fairly fast. Last but not least SSD’s are smaller in size then regular HDD and so can hold more information in a smaller amount of space.

Disadvantages

Now as usual with any type of technology there are a few disadvantages that one might want to take into consideration before purchasing said thing. Dealing with SSD’s the major drawback is price. Since the technology is pretty new (at least to the consumer public) it is quite expensive. You can pay round about $2-300.00 on a 320-680GB HDD for your desktop or notebook. On the other hand most SSD’s double in price for their equivalent in a regular hard disk format. For instance if you were to buy that same amount of space on an SSD you would have to be willing to pay nearly or in excess of $1,000 (600+GB = $1,000).

Another major drawback is the “bugginess” of a lot of SSD that are on the market. As I said before the technology is pretty new on the consumer front and just like any new technology, bugs and troubles always follow. Without calling names, many manufacturers have been plagued with problems such as their SSD loosing space over time due to firmware problems. More importantly sometimes fixes are not available in a timely fashion.

Another problem is the sheer performance upgrade and speed of most computers is quite minimal, and unless you are a power user you will not notice any major differences in performance. In fact if you’re reading this article chances are you won’t need an SSD for performance reasons. In terms of battery life, it would be cheaper in most cases to buy another battery of the same size or an extended one then installing an SSD on your laptop or buying one with the option as it would be less expensive.

Conclusion

So here is my proposition. Unless you are filthy rich, or you are a computer power user you might want to think twice before getting yourself one. But if you are clumsy and prone to drop your system then you might want to consider going with an SSD for data protection. Speaking of which, your best option in that case would be to combine an SSD with a ruggedized notebook so you’re not just securing one component, but the whole system.

As I have said many times before, the best thing to do is to wait a few years before adopting a new technology because if you do wait, you will save yourself headache and money as the prices of anything in the technology field always go down and never up.

Text recognition is now taken to the next level by ABBYY with its brand new product ABBYY FineReader 10. ABBYY is a well known provider of data capturing, document and language recognition. This is the latest version of the OCR (optical character recognition) application of professional level. This extra intelligent software simplifies your work by helping you in creating amendable and searchable electronic files. You can perform this by using PDFs, scanned documents and digital photographs. With the help of this powerful software you can easily reveal data into documents and images. These documents and mages can be further transformed into simple and controllable form. This Fine Reader helps you out in recognizing documents page wise, no matter if the document is complex and multi-page.

This software is based on the new generation of Adaptive Document Recognition Technology (ADRT). By using this technology, FineReader 10 analyses the multi-page, complex documents as the single entity. It has third generation Camera Optical Character Recognition which can read photos clicked with phones easily. It has flexible HTML and saves the E books to the HTML chapters. In this version, Page Layout Analysis is further improved. Two new languages, Korean and Yiddish, for recognition purpose are also featured in this new version.

Some other main features of this FineReader 10 are given below:
• 1. OCR Accuracy and format retention is outstanding.
• 2. Language support is comprehensive.
• 3. Barcode Recognition can also be done.
• 4. High Speed Multicore Processing is featured.
• 5. ABBYY screenshot reader is the bonus application in this.
• 6. The usability is enhanced with Interface revisions and new quick tasks.

The ABBYY FineReader 10 is coming in different editions-
• 1. ABBYY FineReader 10 Professional /edition
• 2. ABBYY FineReader 10 Corporate Edition
• 3. ABBYY FineReader 10 Site License Edition.

You can choose any according to your need and purpose.

ABBYY has launched its ABBYY Scan Station. ABBYY Scan Station is a user friendly document imaging application with which you can easily transform your loads of documents into accessible and well structured form in few minutes. This works as an ideal device for the high volume as well as small amount of documents scanned everyday.

There are number of features and benefits of this ABBYY Scan Station.
1. The user friendly interface of ABBYY Scan Station enables your organization to get the images right away. It saves your staff training time.
2. It is very easy to navigate between documents and batches. You can also have a view of batch and document structure.
3. You can easily drop images by simply dragging them.
4. Organization of multi-page documents becomes effortless with this. With the help of ABBYY Scan Station, automatic separation of pages. can be done. For this you have to apply page count, Barcodes or Patch codes and blank Pages. It deletes the separation sheets automatically. You can add on documents, delete them and rescan them with no difficulty. You can also change the order of pages; drop the images by dragging from one document or batch to another.
5. With this you can eliminate your routine job of naming the files and folders. ABBYY Scan Station can do this work automatically and structure the files and folders immediately. This scheme is featured in compliance with corporate standards. In this scheme various parameters are provided such as recognition of 1D and 2D barcodes on the document separation sheets.
6. One of the key features of this scan station is that it has a special redaction tool with which you can edit confidential data on the images.
7. It has image enhancement tools for the post-scan images which include tools for fast scaling, redaction, inverting, rotation and many more. By using these tools user can easily edit the images for better look and recognition accuracy of data.

ARRA 2009 was passed on February 17, 2009 as the part of Economic Stimulus Package. President Obama’s Health-care Information System Plan is dedicated to the cause of catalyzing the adoption of progressive health in formation technologies. ARRA is providing incentives for this purpose. Taking this cause into consideration, a scheme has been put forward for the healthcare providers under Medicare and Medicaid programs. This is only for the providers those are ready to make the transformation electronically of maintaining PHI. The funds will be distributed according to the program.
1. Medicare Program- the beneficiary of this program is eligible in providing ambulatory medical facilities by using EHRs (Electronic Health Records). The incentive is $44,000 per physician which will be paid out over a period of five years.
2. Medicaid Program- the physicians are eligible to purchase and use qualified electronic medical records and will get incentives of up to $63,750 for the purpose. They will also help those practices which have not used EMR technologies yet. In this $21,250 will be given to every physician as an incentive to assist the purchasing ad implementing a qualified HER system.

The EHR system should be certified and can submit the information required to maintain EHR function’s integrity. Purchasing and implementing the EHR is necessary as the deadline is 2016 to be eligible for the incentives.

You can find our more information to help your evaluate EMR software and on Medical Records Scanning:

1. Five Recommendable EMR Softwares for Doctors/Clinics – a brief review of some medical records software in the market that have been able to offer competent and affordable services for small-scale or single-physician, private practices.
2. Recommendable EMR Vendors for Hospitals/Enterprise-level Healthcare Information Integration – EMR software available for hospitals and large-scale specialty clinics best suited for hospitals or those seeking an enterprise-level integration of healthcare information.

The Department of Health and Human Services has published an interim final rule to conform the enforcement regulations under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) to the HITECH Act, the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act which was enacted as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The HITECH Act privacy and security provisions became effective on Feb. 18, 2009.

HITECH is concerned with defining the requirements for being compatible with the security and privacy regulations of the Privacy Rule. HITECH also facilitates the expansion of HIPAA standards.

The interim final rule is an amendment of HIPAA’s enforcement rules relating to civil monetary penalties incorporating the HITECH Act’s categories of violations, ranges of civil money penalty amounts, and revised limitations on the Secretary’s authority to impose civil money penalties for established violations of HIPAA’s Administrative Simplification Rules. This interim final rule is effective 30 days after today.

Prior to the HITECH Act, the money penalty for HIPAA violations was not more than $100 for each violation or $25,000 for all identical violations of the same provision. A covered entity could also avoid the civil money penalty by showing that it did not know that it violated HIPAA regulations.

HITECH Act Enforcement Interim Final Rule

Section 13410(d) of the HITECH Act, which became effective on February 18, 2009, revised section 1176(a) of the Social Security Act (the Act) by establishing:

• Four categories of violations that reflect increasing levels of culpability;
• Four corresponding tiers of penalty amounts that significantly increase the minimum penalty amount for each violation; and
• A maximum penalty amount of $1.5 million for all violations of an identical provision.

It also amended section 1176(b) of the Act by:

• Striking the previous bar on the imposition of penalties if the covered entity did not know and with the exercise of reasonable diligence would not have known of the violation (such violations are now punishable under the lowest tier of penalties); and
• Providing a prohibition on the imposition of penalties for any violation that is corrected within a 30-day time period, as long as the violation was not due to willful neglect.

This interim final rule will become effective on November 30, 2009.

The HITECH Act
What is HITECH Act? The HIPAA Privacy Rule defines the regulations that are to be followed to become HIPAA-compliant but it is the HITECH Act that defines on the criticality of following these norms and elaborates on enforcement, accountability, penalty and persecution-related guidelines for those involved in sharing or accessing Protected Health Information.

You can find our more information on http://whatishipaa.org/hitech-act.php

The time has gone when there was a need for tedious work while performing scanning, by adjusting the papers one after another. It is the time of Canon DR-9080C Color Duplex Sheet-Fed Scanner (8926A002). May be, you have seen such scanners which adjust automatically with the size and thickness of the document but are not pocket friendly whereas DR-9080C differs a lot as the Canon is offering this scanner at much more affordable prices. This feature makes it appealing for the mass audience. The scanner comes with very high speed and accuracy. It requires almost zero record time. This scanner has changed the definition of cost performance factor.

The DR-9080C is a Multistream System by Canon. The performance is great in respect of the color, binary, grayscale, black and white, R/G/B color dropout. Duplex scanning can be done at 90 pages per minute of black and white or grayscale and over 50 pages can be done of 24bit color. It can easily handle large processing work. It can achieve the speed of 220 ipm if the duplex scanning is done at the landscape mode.

The image quality is astonishing. DR-9080C is loaded with the Canon’s matchless Contact Image Sensor which ensures that each and every detail will be captured. It has optical resolution of 600 dpi and 256 level of black and white or grayscale. The clarity, with which it captures, is outstanding.

The DR-9080C is fitted with a 500-sheet Automatic Document Feeder which provides optimum throughput. It can easily perform the complex jobs. What you have to do is, just slot in the documents in the tray and relax, as the rest will be done by the DR-9080C. It can easily adjust the documents with different sizes, automatically. The scanner does not need any adjustment and straightening of the document. It can perform the hardware and software function along with the on-board compression of JPEG. It rotates the scanned image automatically by recognizing the text orientation.

The scanner has on-board Staple detector which can detect the unremoved staple easily.
It has Ultrasonic Multifeed detector which can detect the double feeds or overlapping and thereby sending an instant message to the operator about the error occurred. It has influential scanning tools and you can also choose the format for the scanning document from the options such as PDF and scan to email. For document indexing and tracking, there are options available which includes Canon Imprinter For Dr-6080 And Dr-9080C Scanners – Scanner Imprinter
, Barcode Mod for DR-2580C/4010C 5010C/ 6080/ 7580/ 9080C/DR-X10C
and Endorser.

I don’t think any other scanner can provide you with such huge options and features. So just go and buy one for your project.

The HIPAA Act of 1996 has set strict standards regarding a patient’s Protected Health Information (PHI) as a part of its Privacy Rule regulations. The Privacy Rule addresses all issues concerned with saving/accessing/sharing medical & personal information of an individual.

However, this is a very basic definition, as the realm of a Covered Entity implies to all Business Associates that are involved in accessing/sharing an individual’s medical health information. A Business Associate represents all persons or organizations that are involved in the direct functioning of a Covered Entity or act on behalf on a Covered Entity.

As required by the Federal Civil Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act of 1990 (Inflation Adjustment Act), the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued both a direct final rule and a proposed rule today adjusting for inflation the maximum civil money penalty amount for violations of the confidentiality provisions of the Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act. These confidentiality provisions are enforced by the Office for Civil Rights (OCR).

The Inflation Adjustment Act requires HHS to adjust for inflation the Patient Safety Act’s civil money penalty amount at least once every four years, beginning from the Patient Safety Act’s date of enactment, which was July 29, 2005. These rules adjust the maximum civil money penalty amount for a violation of the confidentiality provisions of the Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act from $10,000 to $11,000.

The public has 30 days to comment on these rules. If no adverse comments are received, the direct final rule will go into effect 90 days after publication, and the proposed rule with be withdrawn. If, however, adverse comments are received during the comment period, the direct final rule will be withdrawn. For more information, visit the OCR web site at http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/privacy/.

The HIPAA Privacy Rule
What is HIPPA? The HIPAA Privacy Rule, also called the Standards for Privacy of Individually Identifiable Health Information, provides rules and guidelines for the use/disclosure of an individual’s health information.

You can find our more information on http://whatishipaa.org