These days, from looking at a website only, it is difficult to determine if a company is truly reputable. In other words, even a really great looking website might actually be a home-based operation (which may not be appropriate for your organization's classified document scanning needs).
The following list offers two tips in terms of spotting a reputable company based upon the website only.
(1) Archive.org
The website archive.org maintains a feature called "The Wayback Machine." This feature incrementally archives all webpages on the internet. Simply enter a domain name (e.g. softfile.com) and you will be able to see; (1) how many years the domain has been on the internet and (2) you can actually view its earlier pages (e.g. 1999).
So what are we looking for?
First, you might not want to call upon a company that has only had a web presence for a short period of time.
Second, for those that have a longer-term web presence, what was the content of the same domain name, say ten years ago? While in general, websites esthetically look more advance today, are the sites products and services fundamentally the same as they were then? If not, this might be a red-flag.
(2) Advance Detecting
For the more technologic advanced, consider the page source of the website you are browsing, the html code. Let us look at the 'Contact Us' page for our domain, softfile.com.
Here, the customer can use the webform to communicate with someone at SoftFile. What can we learn by looking behind the Contact Us webpage, at the page source's html?
In Microsoft's Intern Explorer 8 click on VIEW then SOURCE and look for the code that submits the contact us form, it looks like the following:
form name="contact" action="http://www.softfile.com/contact/write.asp" method="post"
What does this tell us? It tell us that the form is being submitted and processed somewhere on the actual softfile.com domain.
Let us look at a website I found randomly on Google, http://www.mekiplaw.com/contact_us.html. Again, looking at the page source we see the following:
form action="http://www.bluehost.com/bluemail" enctype="multipart/form-data" method="POST"
In other words, even though the company's domain is mekiplaw.com, the form is being submitted and processed through a "bluehost.com." This fact is probably irrelevant if the consumer is searching for Attorney Services. However, it is extremely relevant if we are searching for Information Technology services. In other words, an IT company should be able to know how to use web technologies, such as online forms, without having to reply upon a third party. Such a scenario should make one wonder, 'what else will this company outsource without our knowledge?'
This information has been provided by:
Matt Monaghan
SoftFile
(916) 927-4211
mattm@softfile.com
Friday, January 13, 2012
Friday, December 30, 2011
PDF/A
California Government Code Section 12168.7, which deals with storing and recording permanent and nonpermanent documents in an electronic format, is lacking specification and clarity. Many attempts have been and are being made to adopt certain statewide standards for electronic storage. The use of PDF/A, which is listed in ISO 19005-1, seems to be the heir apparent in records management. Albeit - with some controversy amongst Records and IT managers.
The PDF/A standard does not define an archiving strategy, but instead identifies a compliant format for electronic documents that ensures they can be reproduced consistently and predictably, in the exact same way, well into the future.
The PDF/A offers users a way to preserve electronic documents in a manner that maintains the documents visual appearance over time, independent of the tools and systems used for creating, storing or rendering the files.
Based on portable document format (PDF) technology from Adobe Systems Inc., PDF/A eliminates PDF features not suited to long-term archival, such as audio, video and transparency.
A vital component to PDF/A reproducibility is that the documents must be 100 percent self-contained. This feature ensures that all information needed to display the document in the same manner every time is embedded in the file. Included in each PDF/A file is all content, including text, raster images and vector graphics; as well as fonts and color information.
Matt Monaghan
SoftFile
(916) 927-4211
mattm@softfile.com
The PDF/A standard does not define an archiving strategy, but instead identifies a compliant format for electronic documents that ensures they can be reproduced consistently and predictably, in the exact same way, well into the future.
The PDF/A offers users a way to preserve electronic documents in a manner that maintains the documents visual appearance over time, independent of the tools and systems used for creating, storing or rendering the files.
Based on portable document format (PDF) technology from Adobe Systems Inc., PDF/A eliminates PDF features not suited to long-term archival, such as audio, video and transparency.
A vital component to PDF/A reproducibility is that the documents must be 100 percent self-contained. This feature ensures that all information needed to display the document in the same manner every time is embedded in the file. Included in each PDF/A file is all content, including text, raster images and vector graphics; as well as fonts and color information.
Matt Monaghan
SoftFile
(916) 927-4211
mattm@softfile.com
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
Price Per Box
Lately, SoftFile has been asked to offer document conversion quotes "per box." Presumably, this is because other vendors are pricing document scanning services in this fashion. The following illustrates why a price "per box" is a bad idea for the customer.
All box content are not equal, consider the following two example;
Box #1 Example
At first glance, Box #1 has about 40 folders and each folder has about 30 sheets of paper (or 1,200 sheets of paper total).
Further, in order to find what you are looking for, each folder must be electronically indexed by say a 7 digit number which might be located on the folder's tab (or 280 characters total).
Finally, in order to get these folders scanner ready (document preparation) assume it will take a SoftFile employee 30 minutes.
Assume the following rate schedule;
Box #1 Example Rate Schedule
Box #2 Example
At first glance, Box #2 has about 2,200 sheets of paper.
If you look really close, there seems to be a staple (a new file or different document) every 20 pages (so there are about 110 individual files).
Further, in order to find what you are looking for, each folder must be electronically indexed by say a 7 digit number which might be located on the folder's tab (or 770 characters total).
Finally, in order to get these folders scanner ready (document preparation) assume it will take a SoftFile employee 1 hour.
Assume the following rate schedule;
Box #2 Example Rate Schedule
In conclusion, a blanket quote of say $150.00 "per box" is really a poor way to quote a large volume document conversion project. This pricing method, although easy for the vendor to quote and for the customer to compute, generally benefits the vendor more than the customer. Further, most boxed document look more like our Box #1 example.
Finally, the more pages per one file (one PDF), generally the less expensive the total project will be.
For more information contact SoftFile at (916) 927-4211 or email us at info@softfile.com.
Matt Monaghan
SoftFile
(916) 927-4211
mattm@softfile.com
All box content are not equal, consider the following two example;
Box #1 Example
At first glance, Box #1 has about 40 folders and each folder has about 30 sheets of paper (or 1,200 sheets of paper total).
Further, in order to find what you are looking for, each folder must be electronically indexed by say a 7 digit number which might be located on the folder's tab (or 280 characters total).
Finally, in order to get these folders scanner ready (document preparation) assume it will take a SoftFile employee 30 minutes.
Assume the following rate schedule;
Box #1 Example Rate Schedule
| Service Description | QTY | Rate | Unit | EXT |
| Document Preparation | 0.5 | $16.00 | Hour | $8.00 |
| Document Scanning | 1,200 | 0.05 | Image | 60.00 |
| Data Entry | 280 | 0.01 | Character | 2.80 |
| Total | $70.80 |
Box #2 Example
At first glance, Box #2 has about 2,200 sheets of paper.
If you look really close, there seems to be a staple (a new file or different document) every 20 pages (so there are about 110 individual files).
Further, in order to find what you are looking for, each folder must be electronically indexed by say a 7 digit number which might be located on the folder's tab (or 770 characters total).
Finally, in order to get these folders scanner ready (document preparation) assume it will take a SoftFile employee 1 hour.
Assume the following rate schedule;
Box #2 Example Rate Schedule
| Service Description | QTY | Rate | Unit | EXT |
| Document Preparation | 1 | $16.00 | Hour | $16.00 |
| Document Scanning | 2,200 | 0.05 | Image | 110.00 |
| Data Entry | 770 | 0.01 | Character | 7.70 |
| Total | $133.70 |
In conclusion, a blanket quote of say $150.00 "per box" is really a poor way to quote a large volume document conversion project. This pricing method, although easy for the vendor to quote and for the customer to compute, generally benefits the vendor more than the customer. Further, most boxed document look more like our Box #1 example.
Finally, the more pages per one file (one PDF), generally the less expensive the total project will be.
For more information contact SoftFile at (916) 927-4211 or email us at info@softfile.com.
Matt Monaghan
SoftFile
(916) 927-4211
mattm@softfile.com
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