Cardscan might save your business life

YOURS TRULY FINDS himself in a living hell of contacts and business cards after each and every tradeshow. Even though e-mail apps have decent contact lists, syncing everything with a variety of devices or even backing up data - one thing is certain, there's at least two days lost in typing or fixing OCR mistakes to get all of the contacts inside your favourite contact manager. [You ever wonder why few of these people contact INQ staff again, Theo? Ed.]

We recently learned that this is not something you have to do, because there is a viable alternative. Cardscan is the name of the company that has been on the market since 1993, and its product has reached its eighth generation. Manufacturer claims to have a product that will never lose your contacts - so we decided to put Cardscan through its paces and see is it really all that manufacturer is claiming, or is this just another "why even bother" kind of product.

Inside the package

This product is a combination of hardware and software: a miniature USB-powered scanner and a CD that contains CardScan organising software - offering syncing with various apps such as Outlook, Thunderbird or importing contacts into business-class cellphones and Blackberries. The scanner is just intended for scanning business cards so some multi-functionality is excluded, but it compensates with a very small size and usage of any USB 2.0 cable.

The software uses .NET Framework, so we would advise you to download the latest version if you do not have it before installation. Other than that, installing was rather a painless process, once that app was installed, it asked for permission to upgrade itself to latest version. After a couple of minutes, installer started once again, rewrote all the older files and installed fresh version of the app.

Online backup service
One of the biggest hassles of folks that change computers or cellphones often is keeping all the contact information in sync. Cardscan comes with "At Your Service", an on-line "vault" that will keep all of the data saved to your personal account. If you're changing companies often, we would advise that the e-mail you use here is a private one, in case you forget your password or something odd happens.

Retrieval of data was flawless, and it is quite easy to keep desktop and notebook in sync. This service automatically makes weekly backups of data, and you can additionally sync yourself between two intervals. BlackBerry Connector service works like a charm, and if you're a Crackberry-nut, you'll pretty much enjoy this service.

So, does it scan everything or is this a fluke?

One of my biggest concerns was the different types of business cards. I have several thousand business cards, but in all sincerity, I only need around 400 contacts afloat. And business cards range from classical paper ones to shiny pieces of metal, so the challenge for this compact scanner is somewhat understandable. During this test, each and every business card I have passed through the machine, and we can report that out of 2780 cards, it recognized 96.21% with no issues. It only had problems with cards that have different pictures in the background, screwing up detection of some letters. We only experienced three business cards that could not be read at all. First one was was shiny metal one with engraved letters (no wonders there), one card that looks like it was designed by a 4th grader and and oddly enough, one relatively clear silverish+red business card from Kode5 guys. The second Kode5 card was recognised in full, which made me wonder.

In short
All in all, we conclude that CardScan Executive v8 continues a tradition of product that is highly useful for business crowd, but not much more. It is really easy to add this scanner to your business travelling bag, since you don't need to worry about cables (any USB 2.0 cable will do), and the software worked like a charm, even on multiple installations. We won't exclude that something may go haywire with hardware components, but seeing how easy is to find necessary contacts only gives me confidence. ?

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