Lounging here in my paisley shirt and brown corduroys staring across the misty fenstowards the turrets and gargoyles of academia, I have time to ponder. What is the perfect add-in? Is it one that installs with the minimum of grief and then works away in the background doing whatever it needs to do without further attention, or is it an add-in that you never knew you really needed until you installed it? Well maybe Digital ArcHound fits all of those criteria.
Despite claims to the contrary, we live in a world where paper is still the preferred means of communication. From till receipts and tax returns, to birth and marriage certificates, paper is often the preferred way of storing information. Digital ArcHound is a retriever of information. Once set up it will sniff out any PDF files that are scanned onto your PC, it will sit on guard and wait for your scanner to deliver a PDF file and then display it within its interface for you to catalogue and then archive onto the WHS.
Glen Hansen and Digital ArcHound got an honorable mention in the Windows Home Server Code2Fame Challenge in Sept 2007 and since then it has been available in beta. Glen and his team have been listening to feedback from the WHS community to refine and bring a stable product to release .
When the first version of Digital ArcHound appeared, a few commentswere made about incorporating this type of tool into the WHS Console. These centered around using the Console as the main tool that a WHS administrator would use to manage the WHS and PC’s on the network rather than a gateway for applications that would be accessed by everyday users. For the record the Digital ArcHound WHS add-In needs no intervention from day to day users and need only be accessed for backing up/restoring or moving the scanned document archives or entering a license code.
Digital ArcHound is a little more than just an add-in designed to tweak WHS settings or provide a service on the WHS and bearing this in mind, its installation is a little lengthier than we have so far been used to with add-ins - but to make this easier it uses an installer to launch each part of the process:
In short:
- Download and launch the installer program
- Create a shared folder on the WHS via the Console called -“Digital ArcHound” ( I added this stage here otherwise you get half through installing the add-in and have to stop to do this)
- Use the Digital ArcHound installer program to automatically place the Add-In within the WHS add-in folder, and then install it via the Console.
- From the Digital ArcHound Installer load the Digital ArcHound WHS Client.
- Use the Digital ArcHound Installer to download and install the PDF Digitizer.
Along the way, Digital ArcHound asks for the name of your server and then confirms the user name of the current PC you are installing on, as well asking for the current user password.
Now this may appear as a straightforward process, but it does involves a lot of clicking on Next and agreeing to files being stored in default locations as well as agreeing to various licenses. The provided installation guide may appear rather lengthy but is broken down into stages and is comprehensive, though it would benefit from a couple of screenshots along the way to make it more user friendly for the less technical user that WHS is trying to get on board.
Digital ArcHound’s licensing system is very smooth and includes a confirmation e-mail and the licensing code for future reference.
Now that Digital ArcHound is installed let’s get to work scanning and filing!
Digital ArcHound works by watching certain defined locations for PDF files - these locations are My Documents and the Desktop, or if your scanner scans to a defined folder Digital ArcHound can watch that folder too.
Whenever a PDF file is scanned into or placed within these areas Digital ArcHound will recognize it, and display it within the Digital ArcHound WHS Client.
The next part of the filing process is to describe the document and place it within various predefined or user defined categories and sub-categories e.g. Household Bills then Credit card bills or Vet bills. Once this is done within the Digital ArcHound settings you can choose files to be copied or moved to the WHS for archiving.
And here’s a subtle feature, even if you don’t have a scanner - Digital ArcHound will take any document that can be printed, be they web pages, word documents or spreadsheets and using the supplied PDF Digitizer, place them within Digital ArcHound for archiving. For example, if you use online banking and you make a credit card payment, you are often given the option to print out the payment details as a receipt, why not print to Digital ArcHound PDF Digitizer and store this receipt on the WHS? I know I will now!
Access to any documents stored within Digital ArcHound can be done from the Manage Archive Tab which shows information about the number of records stored, and by clicking on a category any individual record can be displayed:
Any document archived by Digital ArcHound can be searched for using keywords, entered when saving the document, and then viewed on any PC running the Digital ArcHound Client.
Whenever I scan in a document I never get it the right way round in the scanner and so usually end up with it upside down and have to rotate it to get it the correct way up. Although you cannot do this within Digital ArcHound you can open the document in an external PDF viewer where you can manipulate it, however these changes are not saved back into the document within Digital ArcHound, which is a bit of a pain. My suggestion for a later version would be to allow document rotation within Digital ArcHound.
I was impressed by the integration between the WHS Client and the WHS Add-in which was seamless. As for the WHS add-in itself, well as I mentioned previously there is no need for an everyday user to access Digital ArcHound via the WHS Console, everything for everyday scanning and archiving or retrieving documents is found in the WHS client.
So is Digital ArcHound the perfect add-in for you? Well, despite living in the 21st century paper still abounds. You can use the PDF digitizer to print your online telephone and power bills directly to Digital ArcHound or you can scan in your paper documents for archiving and review later. If you want to move to the nirvana that is a paperless home or office then Digital ArcHound can help you on your way.
Digital ArcHound Windows Homeserver Edition is available now with a special introductory offer of $79.95.
More Info: Digital ArcHound | Discuss
February 22nd, 2008 at 3:31 pm
I don’t know. The pricetag is a bit steep and the interface looks a bit cheap. The team should stick with the default windows laybout.
February 23rd, 2008 at 3:51 pm
I’ve been using DA since early beta and I think it’s great. I use it to archive my family genealogy records, which are many. Using DA for several months now, I disagree with GaMeR about the interface. It’s very user friendly and intuitive. I do agree, however, that the price of DA for most users is a bit high, but my experience with Glenn Hansen and the support I’ve been given has been incredible. The DA team wants to get this right and they are always professional in their responses to support requests, they don’t asume I’m ignorant (they talk to me like I actually have a brain), and ask for feature suggestions.
Having been a product manager in a past life, and a regular user of Digital Archound, I don’t know what more you can ask of a development team.
No, I don’t work for DA nor do I have any business association with them. I’m just a user who likes the product and paid full price because I think that it’s worth it for my tasks.
February 23rd, 2008 at 7:10 pm
I use PaperPort for all these functions, minus the backup to the home server. It will, for example, rotate the documents I scan backwards. I’d appreciate a version of ArcHound that attached to Paper Port. Perhaps a deal could be worked out with Nuance (the current publisher of PaperPort).
February 29th, 2008 at 6:05 pm
The Digital ArcHound Team greatly appreciates this review by Andrew Carr as well as the improvement suggestions and the comments that have been posted.
What makes Digital ArcHound WHS different from other software? It is a multi-user software solution that has been designed for individuals, families and small businesses to quickly and easily move toward a truly paperless environment by allowing them to store, retrieve, archive and manage their electronic documents in a new and innovative way.
Using the Digital ArcHound client software, each computer connected to the WHS server can independently archive, search, recall, email and combine archives from a centrally located archive vault on the WHS server.
Users are reporting that when they need to recall or email a bill, insurance statement, report cards, contract, receipt or other important piece of information, Digital ArcHound is the easiest way to find it.
Digital ArcHound is designed to work in concert with nearly all of the scanners and scanner software that write to PDFs, (Dell, HP, Nuance PaperPort, etc.), and will continue to work more seamlessly with each successive build.
Our goal is to quickly integrate the features that our current and future customers request that will make their archiving experience even easier in the future.
Again, we appreciate the suggestions and feedback. Our next update, to be released in March 2008, will include the ability to rotate scan sets CW 90, CCW 90 and 180 along with enhanced integration with industry standard scanner software and hardware.
The Digital ArcHound Team