Press Release - 25 November 2005
Cardbox's personal document management brings power to the people
On Thursday at 11am the phone call came. "We have an interested buyer," the estate agent said, "and he's in a hurry. Can he see the lease? Now? Please?"… Half an hour later it was all on his desk, thirty-six pages of leases, lease extensions, covenants, mortgages and Land Registry documents. But this is not a story about motorcycle couriers or panic photocopying sessions: it's a story about Cardbox.
Cardbox is a database. It stores information. Anything you can make a list of, you can store in Cardbox. Cardbox stores and indexes text (words, numbers and dates) but it stores documents and photographs as well. Put a document in your scanner, press a button, and it's in your Cardbox database. You can label it, classify it, give it keywords. You can search for it later and find it easily. You can read it on the screen, print it out or fax it – all without having to touch the original. You can back up your Cardbox database onto a CDROM, and carry it round with you in case of accidents: something that isn't possible with paper files. You can even send it by email.
Today, more than ever, it is crucial for people to keep track of documentation that may go back years. When you get into an argument about your mortgage it may be vital to lay your hands on that piece of useless bumf that the salesman pressed on you in early 1984. Cardbox is the solution. Equipped with a PC, and Cardbox, and a scanner, anyone can build an archive of letters and documents and have instant access to them for ever afterwards. Even people whose filing instincts stop at "M for miscellaneous". Here are some examples:
- House – legal documents, maintenance, improvements.
- Car – from brochure and purchase invoice to garage bills and insurance claims.
- Possessions – the perfect insurance inventory with receipts and photographs for everything.
- Photographs – scan or import them, index them, and find them again in seconds.
Cardbox is also a good, solid text database with an unrivalled combination of simplicity and power:
- Contacts: names and addresses, mailing lists, Christmas cards.
- Collections: books, music.
- Study: research, reading lists, abstracts, lists of web links.
- Clubs and societies: membership, mailings, subscriptions.
Each record in a Cardbox database can have any number of scanned pages (and photographs) attached to it, as well as up to 4,000 fields containing any amount of text (words, numbers, dates) indexed for fast retrieval. The Home Edition of Cardbox costs £54.99 including VAT: its database size is limited to 10,000 records and it omits corporate/technical features such as passwords, encryption, programming and automation. The Professional Edition holds 16 million records per database and allows shared database access on a corporate LAN or across the wider Internet: prices start at £299+VAT (single-user) or £575+VAT (3-user network).
For more information contact Martin Kochanski at press@cardbox.com. Review copies are available.
About Cardbox
Quick summary of Cardbox's features
Text: Indexes individual words in a piece of text (such as an address or description), allowing virtually instantaneous searches. Cardbox recognises and indexes numbers and dates without needing separate numeric or date fields.
Unlimited images can be attached to each record: photographs, drawings, documents of any size. Cardbox compresses images using JPEG for photographs and its own proprietary compression algorithm for documents and drawings.
Searching methods include keywords, full text, wildcards, fuzzy matching, Boolean search and phrase searching. Searches can be combined and refined, and can even be fine-tuned manually.
Display and output: a single concept of user-drawn "formats" replaces the traditional confusion of input forms, list views, and mail-merge templates. Creating mailing labels is as simple as choosing a paper size. Additionally, printed output can include special features such as bar codes.
Capacity and requirements
Records per database: 10,000 (Home Edition), 16,000,000 (Professional Edition).
Fields per record: 4,096.
Size of fields: no practical limit.
Images per record: no practical limit.
Database file size: 1,024GB (1TB).
Operating system: Microsoft Windows 95, 98, Me, NT 4.0, 2000, XP and above
Memory: 32MB.
Disk space: 12MB.
Professional Edition
The Professional Edition of Cardbox adds high-end features for corporate, networking, and technical contexts, including encryption, password-protected profiles, macros, programming, and automated data validation.
Pricing
Home Edition: £54.99 including VAT.
Professional Edition: £299 plus VAT (single-user). Networks start at £575+VAT
(3-user network including the Cardbox Server).
Home Edition users can upgrade to the Professional Edition on payment of the
difference in price.
Contact details
Cardbox Software Limited • P.O. Box 91 • Tunbridge Wells • TN2 9GP • England
Tel: 020 7460 3179 • sales@cardbox.com • www.cardbox.com