Why are you still using 80 year old technology?

Hey Tek-ninjas! So, I love technology. No surprise. I love old technology too. But mostly just as an idea - relevant in it's era, not to use today if possible. I often marvel to find that we are still sending faxes and are then surprised to find the recipient didn't receive the documents or only got parts. Sometimes we don't find out they didn't receive the documents long after we sent them. This can be a real issue.

I get it, sometimes we don't have a choice - after all not everyone has a scanner.... or maybe we just don't know that we have a choice. Maybe you do have a scanner. In your pocket. 

If you have a smart phone - you have a scanner. And once you scan your documents, you can email them right off of your phone.

Did you know that the native app called Notes on your iPhone or your iPad has built in scan technology? See the video below for a quick demonstration. This is super slick and easy to use.

If you are using an Android based phone or tablet you are not out of luck. But to my knowledge, the simplest free solution is to have a gmail account, and install the Drive application. Then follow these steps:

• Open the Google Drive app .
• In the bottom right, tap Add .
• Tap Scan .
• Take a photo of the document you'd like to scan. Adjust scan area: Tap Crop . Take photo again: Tap Re-scan current page . Scan another page: Tap Add .
• To save the finished document, tap Done .
• Then, within Drive you can email a link to the document. Make sure you have the share permissions set correctly. 

Either solution will allow you to bypass technology that was invented in 1843 and appears to have made little improvement since then (that is admittedly an uneducated position as I don't know what improvements have actually been made since then). For example if you are working with Tobii Dynavox you can send in Trial Forms or Purchase forms for a client's AAC equipment. You can email them directly to funding@tobiidynavox.com, and not worry that they never made it over the fax line.

Happy therapy!