Snowbound Software Imaging Technology Blog

February 21, 2012 in ECM, Hot Technology by Scott Pasho

Snowbound Helps Healthcare Organizations meet Compliance Standards

As the digital age becomes more and more a part of our everyday lives, there are certain pieces of information that we want or need to protect, (Facebook users who tell us every minute detail of their lives notwithstanding). One of the most important of these is our healthcare information – which is protected by several government mandated compliance standards including the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) passed by Congress in 1996, and the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act enacted in 2009.

January 3, 2012 in ECM, Hot Technology by Snowbound Software

Batch converting and archiving older file formats using AFP conversion

Created in the mid-1980s, the AFP format was developed by IBM to drive and support the firm’s form printing via laser printers. This raster format was created to greatly enhance document formatting and indexing for industries such as financial services, insurance and retail. Employing modern batch conversion technology (AFP conversion) enables organizations to convert text-based documents, and create a secure and searchable PDF archive.

December 28, 2011 in ECM, Hot Technology by Scott Pasho

AJAX Image Viewers Used for Many Unique Applications & Presentations

Sample AJAX Image Gallery

As the market for digital photography and imagery continues to grow, more and more of us are accessing web-based image galleries. AJAX* image viewers make it possible to display virtually any image, even those from an old archive and possible archaic format, in an instant. And web-based AJAX image viewers enable not only the ability to display images, but coupled with an online gallery application, to easily manipulate the layout and appearance of these displays as well.

November 1, 2011 in Hot Technology by Snowbound Software

Musings on document viewers, image converters, sports, holidays and more…

We keep hearing about and reading pieces that contain some variation of the phrase ‘in these economic times’. Aren’t we all getting a little tired of it? And of course there’s that little collapse with our baseball team here in Boston. So, how about some good news for a change?!?!

October 12, 2011 in Hot Technology by agiza

Imagine you owned a record store, and you knew that a new replacement technology, namely CDs was on the horizon, and you wondered how it would affect your business. What would become of the local hangout (your record store) where kids picked up their favorite albums to solve all their problems with a clever 80′s musical montage, (or so they thought anyway)?

October 5, 2011 in ECM, Hot Technology by Scott Pasho

Twenty years ago my bottom desk drawer contained a bottle of scotch and some tumblers – and on the corner on top I had a cigar humidor. Ten years ago the scotch disappeared, and as of my last two jobs, I haven’t had a humidor in my office either. Now this isn’t to suggest that my colleagues and I spent a great deal of time with either of these vices – the scotch was for Fridays after work (we even coined the term ‘scotch Friday’), and the cigars were celebratory after an accomplishment at the office – be it a deal closing or a successful project completion – and we smoked them outdoors.

October 4, 2011 in ECM, Hot Technology by Snowbound Software

Seems to me that the more ways we create to communicate – the worse we are at it. Today we have at our disposal all manners of mobile and desktop computing and communication devices – and still can’t seem to find that balance between communication and overkill. Electronically, we use email, texting, instant messaging, phone calls and traditionally the occasional letter (yes I still put pen to paper – my older relatives aren’t on the Internet) and carrier pigeon – but only for my relatives on the outer fringes of New England and the Appalachian Trail.

September 29, 2011 in Best Business Practices, Hot Technology by Scott Pasho

Side note: As you may be aware, Snowbound Software relocated to larger quarters almost a year ago. As I’ve walked around our relatively new space, I’ve noticed that the windows in the office doors and little windows alongside kind of make it seem like we’re on display – as if there should be a sign on the wall that says ‘Marketing Manager – May be Irritable – Don’t Feed or Tap on Glass’. (And I won’t even go into what the signs would say for the sales and engineering departments…)

September 27, 2011 in Best Business Practices, Hot Technology by Scott Pasho

Spinning a Yarn about Nature that relates to creating document viewers for our clients & partners

I was looking out my balcony at the little pond behind our building, listening to the fountain, when I noticed a spider building a web in a pine tree right at eye level. Then I noticed another spider directly opposite – helping to build the same web. Round and round they went across from each other – quickly and cooperatively creating the means to feed and house themselves. I’d never seen spiders do this together before – the teamwork and precision was impressive. I kept waiting for one to attack the other as I thought they were extremely territorial, but it didn’t happen.

August 31, 2011 in ECM, Hot Technology by Scott Pasho

One of the challenges of marketing is putting a spin on technical topics for the non-technical audience (like me for instance) – making sure that even those who didn’t graduate with a degree in some science or other understand what your offerings do in a (very succinct and obvious) nutshell. Take our batch converter technology for instance, or the image conversion technology behind our document viewer. People hear a technical discussion about ‘document conversion’ and if they’re not of a technical mind, their eyes glaze over.

August 25, 2011 in Best Business Practices, ECM, Hot Technology by Scott Pasho

‘You may not realize it, but you probably use or benefit from our technology several times every day.

Snowbound’s technology helps deliver your mail, process your insurance forms and claims, expedites your banking transactions and even securely distributes patient information to healthcare professionals.’

This is the phrase we use at the beginning of presentations (Webinars) and the end of media releases – telling people how our document viewing and image conversion applications and imaging toolkits are an everyday part of their lives – whether they realize it or not. It’s kind of the ‘Intel Inside’ approach to awareness – branding a behind-the-scenes solution to make your audience aware of your contribution.

May 19, 2011 in Hot Technology by Scott Pasho

Universal document viewing solutions ensure that information can be accessed – no matter the format it was created in. Users of this technology don’t even need to have the application(s) that the document (or image file) was created in on their computer (such as Word, Excel or PDF) – the viewer will automatically convert the file for displaying. Solutions for Java imaging, Windows imaging and other technologies will be highlighted here.

May 17, 2011 in Hot Technology by Scott Pasho

IBM’s FileNet Content Manager provides a wide range of document management capabilities coupled with workflow processes to automate content-related tasks. FileNet was originally established to offer content management systems to help companies manage their content and business processes. After IBM purchased FileNet, they continued to market FileNet as both an Enterprise Content Management (ECM) and Business Process Management (BPM) system –helping companies make better decisions faster.

May 11, 2011 in Hot Technology by Snowbound Software

Transmitting Information via a ‘Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine’ document converter (or DICOM converter)

As you know, when you visit the doctor’s office or a hospital and have to fill out forms before an appointment or upon admission – you frequently have to give the healthcare professionals the same information you’ve given them many times before. Wouldn’t it be nice if the various specialists one might see could all have secure access to a patient’s complete medical records, including scans, lab results, x-rays and doctors notes – so they’re all on the same page?

April 26, 2011 in Hot Technology by Scott Pasho

And no, not for viewing pictures of coffee…
Java, for those of you who don’t know, is a general-purpose object-oriented programming language developed at Sun Microsystems that is designed to have few implementation dependencies. Java is currently one of the most popular programming languages in use, and is widely used from application software to web applications. Java’s ‘write once, run anywhere’ credo makes it a perfect development platform for an application such as a Java Image Viewer that can transparently run on almost any platform – from Windows to Unix to the iPad to a Droid device.

Why Java?

March 18, 2011 in Hot Technology by Jen Wieczner

– Previously published on ‘The Atlantic’ –

Several years ago, I started saving voicemails from my mother. It was an odd thing to do, especially for someone who continually grumbles for her mom to stop leaving messages that just say “call me.” It was during one of those rare checks, where I would have to listen to five unheard and unessential messages to get to the one that mattered, when I was suddenly hit by a sense of mortality. My mom’s message, from several weeks earlier and never listened to, wondering where I was, how I was doing, hoping I was OK — it meant something. I pressed 9 to save, instead of 7 to delete.

March 16, 2011 in Hot Technology, Tips & Tricks by Patty Morrison

“Friends don’t let friends use Internet Explorer 6. And neither should acquaintances.” This is a quote from Microsoft’s site, The Internet Explorer 6 Countdown, www.theie6countdown.com, encouraging users of the decade-old browser, Internet Explorer 6 to upgrade to a modern browser. The website is striving to get worldwide use of IE6 down below 1%. According to the website, the IE6 use around the world is currently at 12%. It is 2.9% in the US. It is 35% in China.

Below are some statistics of the web browsers that visitors to snowbound.com use:

March 11, 2011 in Hot Technology by Scott Pasho

The World Wide Web has made it possible for us to have virtually unlimited volumes of information available anytime with just a few strokes of the keyboard or clicks of a mouse. With so much data in cyberspace, a key concern has become the security of personal information that should remain private except to those authorized to have access. Personal financial information and other data such as social security numbers, dates of birth and other unique identifiers need to be safeguarded from prying eyes for obvious reasons such as identity theft.

February 22, 2011 in Hot Technology by Scott Pasho

As the growth in the marketplace of mobile devices such as Smartphone’s, tablets and laptops/notebooks seems to have no ceiling – one wonders how effective they are for viewing documents on-the-fly. We all know how easy these tools are to use for messaging, GPS and other apps, but how about for effectively perusing and processing documents for business? Especially the small screens found on iPhones, Blackberries, Droids and others – can they really become an effective business tool for viewing and executing contracts, forms and other documents for on-the-go professionals?

December 1, 2010 in Hot Technology by John Ohrenberger

My girlfriend is a bit of a hypochondriac. I say this with all of the love I can muster when sitting in the emergency room at 3:00 in the morning. She is fine mind you, but she just saw a special on West Nile virus and now thinks that she might be coming down with a mild case. I only bring this up because when I was imprisoned in the waiting room, wasting away the hours of precious sleep I usually get before a full day of work, I noticed that she was laboriously filling out a patient medical form, for like the tenth time this year. I began to wonder why a patient, possibly stricken with a mild case of West Nile, would have to meticulously fill out a medical form when not three weeks ago we were in this same waiting room filling out the same paperwork. The answer: a lack of technology.