Iris Business Card Reader II (Macintosh Edition)

Rating:
Summary: Writing about a Reader
Review: If you'd still like proof that the average human mind doesn't think in any manner resembling a computer's processor chip (even those computers we love that help us "think different!"), attempt to comprehend the challenge in how a computer "reads" a sheet of paper.

You and I read an article in the newspaper, skip over to a eye-catching advertisement, pull out our wallets and exchange business cards, and all the time, we have learned to scan the item of interest, pick out those words that are important, discard the rest as unnecessary, and go about our busy lives.

But not a computer. A computer lives for those details. And those same details can mire a processor down.

Which in a way is why the Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software engine used by ReadIRIS Pro 9.0 is a delight to work with. The people behind the software have helped to link the scanned data into basic patterns and formats ever so much more useful to the daily lives of the user (me, in this case!)

I initially looked into this review by getting my hands on the Business Card Reader (BCR) device, in this version, roman number II, so that I might make my life easier by managing the growing pile of business cards that I collect, and have collected over the past decade, and expect to continue to collect well into the future.

There is something wonderful indeed about business cards, especially in how succinct the summary of a person's relevance. But I digress away from attempting to deal with this growing pile of cards.

Card files don't seem to work for me. But I have enjoyed manually inputting some of my more frequent contacts into Address Books (both Apple's version and Microsoft's Entourage version.) So it seemed an obvious step to begin to input the business cards using a Business Card Reader!

I will warn you -- skip the software that comes "standard" with the current Business Card Reader II. An upgrade is promised, but in the meantime, consider using another ReadIRIS product -- Pro 9.0 (in my case, I tried the corporate edition).

ReadIRIS Pro is a joy to work with. The install was smooth and easy. The software engine (with all files and reference information) installed in less than 80 megabytes. I thought that quite good, especially with how the software promised to handle so many different fonts and language styles.

I tested the software with both a Hewlett Packard scanner and the BCR device. Switching between the two was very quick. I can see how the OCR software could pay for itself due to some of the vast amount of reference materials still unconverted to digital format (the software outputs in text, rich-text, html and pdf formats). Keep in mind however to put aside some time to proof your new documents against the old. If you have a set of material which needs OCR review, one of ReadIRIS Pro 9.0's benefit's shines -- the work you do to input corrections into a dictionary format can help similar documents in basic recognition of font and language skill.

In order to get back to my original project of dealing with my card piles, I was able to get cards read into Entourage's address book in an average of 3 minutes per card. I'm not too quick at typing, but I might have entered them only slightly faster just by doing it all manually. But -- I haven't done this over time. And, I was sort of mesmerized by watching the scanner process my business card stack. That is the fast part. The other portion of the three minute average was spent looking over the scanned data (automatically exported from ReadIRIS Pro 9.0 into Entourage) and "proofing". I was very impressed by the quantity of correct data, even with "pretty" photograph enhanced business cards.

My business card organization project will be ongoing. But now I have a much better tool set.

I definitely recommend the Iris Business Card Reader, but I also recommend contacting the company to see when the enclosed version of software is upgraded, since I didn't benefit from the full corporate version of the software at the listed price.

Rating:
Summary: Writing about a Reader
Review: If you'd still like proof that the average human mind doesn't think in any manner resembling a computer's processor chip (even those computers we love that help us "think different!"), attempt to comprehend the challenge in how a computer "reads" a sheet of paper.

You and I read an article in the newspaper, skip over to a eye-catching advertisement, pull out our wallets and exchange business cards, and all the time, we have learned to scan the item of interest, pick out those words that are important, discard the rest as unnecessary, and go about our busy lives.

But not a computer. A computer lives for those details. And those same details can mire a processor down.

Which in a way is why the Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software engine used by ReadIRIS Pro 9.0 is a delight to work with. The people behind the software have helped to link the scanned data into basic patterns and formats ever so much more useful to the daily lives of the user (me, in this case!)

I initially looked into this review by getting my hands on the Business Card Reader (BCR) device, in this version, roman number II, so that I might make my life easier by managing the growing pile of business cards that I collect, and have collected over the past decade, and expect to continue to collect well into the future.

There is something wonderful indeed about business cards, especially in how succinct the summary of a person's relevance. But I digress away from attempting to deal with this growing pile of cards.

Card files don't seem to work for me. But I have enjoyed manually inputting some of my more frequent contacts into Address Books (both Apple's version and Microsoft's Entourage version.) So it seemed an obvious step to begin to input the business cards using a Business Card Reader!

I will warn you -- skip the software that comes "standard" with the current Business Card Reader II. An upgrade is promised, but in the meantime, consider using another ReadIRIS product -- Pro 9.0 (in my case, I tried the corporate edition).

ReadIRIS Pro is a joy to work with. The install was smooth and easy. The software engine (with all files and reference information) installed in less than 80 megabytes. I thought that quite good, especially with how the software promised to handle so many different fonts and language styles.

I tested the software with both a Hewlett Packard scanner and the BCR device. Switching between the two was very quick. I can see how the OCR software could pay for itself due to some of the vast amount of reference materials still unconverted to digital format (the software outputs in text, rich-text, html and pdf formats). Keep in mind however to put aside some time to proof your new documents against the old. If you have a set of material which needs OCR review, one of ReadIRIS Pro 9.0's benefit's shines -- the work you do to input corrections into a dictionary format can help similar documents in basic recognition of font and language skill.

In order to get back to my original project of dealing with my card piles, I was able to get cards read into Entourage's address book in an average of 3 minutes per card. I'm not too quick at typing, but I might have entered them only slightly faster just by doing it all manually. But -- I haven't done this over time. And, I was sort of mesmerized by watching the scanner process my business card stack. That is the fast part. The other portion of the three minute average was spent looking over the scanned data (automatically exported from ReadIRIS Pro 9.0 into Entourage) and "proofing". I was very impressed by the quantity of correct data, even with "pretty" photograph enhanced business cards.

My business card organization project will be ongoing. But now I have a much better tool set.

I definitely recommend the Iris Business Card Reader, but I also recommend contacting the company to see when the enclosed version of software is upgraded, since I didn't benefit from the full corporate version of the software at the listed price.