On a weekly basis, I’ll try to feature one gadget that will help you out in your business.
This week, I’m featuring something on my wishlist. For years we’ve been hearing about the “Paperless Office”. Unfortunately, it’s been my experience that computers just found new ways to give us more paper to deal with. One of my big goals this year is to completely digitize my workflow. I work from home, and tend to do this work all over the place. Having all my work scanned and neatly organized in folders on my laptop would save me a huge amount of time and frustration. Unfortunately, my current equipment just takes too long to scan each page, one by one, and then manually organize.
My pick this week is the NeatDesk from The Neat Company. 
This is basically your scanner on steroids, without the bad side effects. On top, there’s an automatic feeder that accepts 3 types of documents (up to 50 pages); regular paper, receipts, and business cards. It even scans both sides in a single pass. That alone makes it better than my current all-in-one. After it’s done scanning, the software takes over. All of your documents can be converted to searchable PDF files, and then organized in a digital filing system. Make sure to check out the link to find out all the juicy details.
At $399US, it’s not cheap by any means. However, consider the alternative. With my $200 all-in-one, I have to manually add each page, press Scan, wait, flip the page over, press Scan again. After repeating this step 50 times, I’ve lost a big chunk of my day, and my sanity. With the NeatDesk, I toss 50 pages in the feeder, press a button, and walk away or get back to other work.
If you’re a fan of GTD, I suggest at least placing this on your Someday/Maybe list.
NeatDesk

Silver linings can be hard to find sometimes, especially during tax season. One of the big questions you ask yourself when you start your business is, “Should I incorporate?”. The government may be giving you one more item to add to the Pro side of your chart. With the economic woes we’ve all faced, the government is trying to give small business a break.

It’s a tough tax world: Small businesses might benefit from incorporation

Add Your Dropbox Folder to Windows 7′s Start Menu [Tweaks]: “

If you’re a fan of file syncing service Dropbox, you probably open its auto-saving folder as often as your Pictures or Music. Why not add it to your Start Menu? It’s fairly easy to pull off with a few right-clicks.

At the How-To Geek’s web home away from Lifehacker, he details how to add a “Recorded TV” link to your Start Menu’s default click-to-open options. That’s not exactly what you want, of course, but Windows 7 makes it easy to right-click a Start Menu item, change its properties—so that it points to a new “library” consisting of your Dropbox folder—and rename it to something like, oh, let’s say “My Dropbox.” That way, keyboard fiends can quickly pull up their Start Menu and head over to pop open their Dropbox, and mouse clickers get the same kind of convenience. Plus, as the Geek suggests, it just belongs there.

You can, of course, modify this work-around to turn ‘Recorded TV’ into a link to pretty much any folder that you rename. The small downside is that hovering your mouse over the link still reveals a text tip about ‘Watch your recorded TV …’ That’s a pretty small price to pay for day-to-day convenience.

“