<p>I’m still collecting ideas for a great birthday present. Does anyone have a Cardscan and have you had good luck with it (recognizes characters, software does everything with Outlook it claims, etc…)? Or do you know of a better product?</p>
<p>I’m torn about this because though I know my husband would love it, he’s in the midst of a new company startup with 2 partners. Office space is under construction, furniture, computers, etc… are on order…and this is something he’d probably prefer the company purchase. But it’s almost as much for me as for him since he has been in a home office for a few months (well actually an AIRPLANE is his main office)…and the mess around here is driving me nuts. It HAS crossed my mind that I should try to organize his baseball caps instead though…lol!</p>
<p>Ah well…Any reviews of business card scanners would be appreciated anyway.</p>
<p>My support staff uses them all the time - I don’t think they have any problems with them. I can hand them a stack of business cards and I get a nice report back with all the information from the cards, plus they import easily into my CRM. Lots of times my cards have foreign characters on them, or weird fonts, and I’ve never had any data errors. </p>
<p>If he’s in start-up mode, he might prefer something more standard though - somehow, there’s never enough “stuff” and it’s the little things you don’t have that make or break a day = what about a large, nicely decorated basket that is a “care package” of “stuff” from Office Depot or Staples - full of his favorite pens, pencils, boxes of staples, post-it notes, scissors, white-out, scotch tape, markers, office first-aid kit, you name it. I realize he can buy and expense this stuff, but, at the onset, it’s a pain to make the time to run the errand to get it all, so, having it immediately available as sort of a “starter kit” might be a very welcome life saver.</p>
<p>The other thing you might consider is something more “fun” - an office espresso machine and all the fixings, etc.</p>
<p>lts - thank you…those are great ideas! I’m so out of the loop on how the office is coming along because my husband is out on the road ‘cuttin’ the deals’ (story of my life - he just left for Colombia), and the cfo is setting up the office space, doing procurement, accounting systems, hiring, etc. But putting together a basket or something like you suggested would really make our son’s day! He’d LOVE being able to pick out things himself and my husband would appreciate the personal touch. Maybe we’ll throw in framed family pictures for his desk too. (Since he never sees us…lol!)</p>
<p>I used a card scanner at a previous job and thought it was fantastic. You still have to read all of the entries because some of the designs of the business cards are hard to read by the scanner.
I recommend it for anyone who gets tons and tons of business cards. Its easy to set up, easy to use - and there is a feature that allows you to pull up your account from whatever computer your on.</p>