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BANG FOR THE BITE
If 10,000 Biters save just five docs on their computer instead of printing them out, we'll save six trees' worth of paper.
COCKTAIL FACT
Lord of the Flies is satirized in not one, but two, Simpsons episodes.
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home › tip library › Digital Filing
Would you rather get planewrecked on a desert island than deal with your paper files?
The Bite
File docs digitally, rather than printing them out. Creating portable document files (PDFs) of online bills, contracts, and receipts on your PC and keeping them in folders on your hard (or external) drive saves you paper and printer ink, and makes keeping track of things simpler than saving a group of schoolboys from self-inflicted doom.The Benefits
- Saving trees for escape rafts. Paper makes up more of our garbage than any other type of trash at almost 40% (you can always print out docs later if you need to).
- It's easier than playing a conch shell, and it's a whole lot easier than dealing with physical folders and those annoying multicolored tabs.
- Easy file rescue. Searching your hard drive takes way less time than digging through file cabinets.
Personally Speaking
While the Biter offices aren't totally paperless, our file cabinets are more notable for the plants perched on top than the measly number of files inside.Wanna Try?
- Mac Users - select Print for your document, then click the PDF button or select it from the pull-down menu. Save the new document inside a folder. To search your hard drive for files, just select File from the desktop menu, then Find.
- PC Users - if you don't have one installed, download a PDF maker such as Adobe Acrobat or the free CutePDF Writer. Once you set it up, follow the directions for Mac users above. To search your hard drive for files, click Start, then Search.
- Definitely back up your files with an external hard drive from time to time, since you never know when your computer's gonna crash.
- Google Desktop - search your whole hard drive using the power of Google; free download.
- Microsoft Home Magazine - tips for keeping your file folders tidy.
Jun 30,2008
Sponsor
Remember when you downloaded the Kim Kardashian and Ray J sex video onto your laptop just to see what all the fuss was about, watched about 20 seconds of it, then dumped it into your Recycle Bin? Turns out that even after you empty your Bin, the file probably still exists somewhere on your hard drive.
When you "delete" a file, your computer doesn't actually delete the data at that point. It just marks the location on your drive, then later overwrites it - the keyword being "later." If you have a big hard drive, it could be years. It's called data remanence, and just as Google is saving the entire Internet on hard drives somewhere (even after you take the pages down), it's, uh, reassuring to know that everything you ever do on your computer is probably traceable.
-Toshio...off to take a hammer to my hard drive...
Biter Comments...
PHOTO ALBUMS
Posted by: Kate | June 30, 2008 at 02:02 PM