PaperBack V1.00    Suggested by JohnW - Updated by webfork on 4 Jan 2010 227KB (uncompressed) - Popularity score (759) Website - Screenshot - Download - Comments (10) - Post comment - Permalink

Posted comments:

 donald: This application is a very cool Idea! I will try to test it with both data (mp3,wav,jpg,bmp) and a program or two, with a special emphasis on the MD5 sum of the product versus the Primary.
This kind of Idea could produce a reasonable check against silent data loss for very useful data,I could see someone storing data that would be hard to get and hard to use for a number of reasons. [2009-11-10 21:18]

 Webfork: An outstanding idea but disturbingly, a quick test using a print-to-PDF tool "PDF Creator" and the "PDF-XChange Viewer" software to export to BMP revealed an error. A totally digital exchange creating problems suggests that using a printer will create similar issues.

That said, a second test worked fine.

I would recommend lowering the dot density, raising the dot size, and highest redudancy for the best data retention. After all if you're going to do all this work to print out your data, you're going to want to get it back later. [2009-11-11 01:03]

 Calis: Remember when we used to scan all of our text pages into the computer to save space, time and money? [2009-11-11 11:08]

 spchtr: The program saved directly to a bitmap for me, via File>Save Bitmap, But then it gave me an error Unsupported Bitmap. WTF? [2009-11-11 15:07]

 KingMudkip: With integrated compression set to max & dpi set to 300, I get a 11-page document for a 4MB zip file. But the description claims you can get 3MB on one sheet. I'd love to know why this is, especially because this program looks pretty interesting. [2009-11-11 17:19]

 James Curran: @KingMudkip: a) the description also says "the 600 dpi resolution" which is 4x as dense as you are using (twice as many vertically, twice as many horizontally) b) it also says "With integrated compression, up to 3MB". Your zip file is already compressed -- the integrated compression won't do much more. You should base you expection on the total size of the file within the zip. (And if the Zip has files which themselves are inherently compressed, like jpgs or mp3, consider the size of the bmps are wavs they represent) [2009-11-11 17:35]

 Ironic: How long before we have to contend with paper based vectors for malware? From "paperless office" to...paperless office? [2009-11-11 18:20]

 KingMudkip: @James Curran: a) PaperBack won't give me any higher option than 300 dpi. I don'tthink it's hiding the option because it thinks my printer can't use it, because my printer can indeed do 600 dpi. That's its default setting. b) Oh yeah, I should've remembered that. [2009-11-11 21:55]

 Portable Paul: LOL, virus post-its... i'd have to walk around with a rubber stamp with a virus encoded into the image. total low tek snow-crash. That may become my IM avatar from now on. this truly opens up a ton of possibilities. most of the absurd or useless but entertaining and that's the most important part. [2009-11-12 05:51]

 PJ: Hm, so I would have to use about a thousand pieces of paper to back up my latest snapshots... very efficient *g* [2009-12-12 05:24]

Post your comment:

All HTML tags will be removed from your comment. URLs (http, https, ftp) will be automatically detected and hyperlinked. I reserve the right to delete irrelevant, frivolous or offensive comments. For more general topics (eg. whether apps that write to the registry, leave traces on the host machine, rely on certain versions of IE etc. can be considered portable), please post to the Portable Freeware Discussion forum. If your virus scanner has detected a virus in the application, please email the author directly or post to the forum. Note that false positives (i.e. flagging a virus when there is actually none) are extremely common for virus scanners. When in doubt, try an online scanner like Online Malware Scanner or VirusTotal, which scans files using multiple anti-virus engines. It is very likely to be a false positive if only a few engines raise the red flag.