By Lisa Neff

Contributing writer

“Did you copy that?” my partner asks, expecting the honest answer to be “no” and predetermined to disapprove of my poor record-keeping.

But my honest answer is “yes,” because this season I’ve gotten around my distaste for stockpiling old papers by digitizing documents and storing them away in a lockbox the size of a deck of cards.

So there!

I grew up in a teacher’s home, where on the weekends papers were strewn in semi-organized piles on most flat surfaces on the first floor—newspapers, test sheets, essay booklets, cut-out articles, notes, notes on notes.

So, despite my thing for newspapering, I never had a thing for papers. For years I didn’t even collect my clips.

And then along came scanners.

And then along came accessory drives, palm-sized or smaller gadgets that can hold an office full of paperwork but allow me to keep a paperless home office.

When tax season arrived this year, I had only to pop my USB drive into my laptop to recover the PDF receipt for this MacBook, a receipt for the new cordless digital HP scanner/printer, a receipt for the new digital Panasonic Lumix camera and a receipt for the new USB drive—tools of the home-based journalist’s trade and all potential deductions if the percentages work out.

One of the most secure USB drives on the market is Apricorn’s Aegis Mini, which features a 16-point directional shock mounting system to protect the drive—and its contents—from accidental bumps and knocks.

The bundled software features additional data protection, as well as an application to synchronize data.

The drive, compatible with both PC and Mac systems, also contains the option of a hi-speed USB connection or a FireWire interface, depending on your preference.

Also, the drive draws its power from the computer. So you need not worry about being in the vicinity of the nearest wall socket or the dangling cable wrap. www.apricorn.com

The Seagate FreeAgent Go data mover is another portable drive, available with storage capacities of 120GB, 160GB and 250GB. The drive, available with a five-year warranty, is coffeehouse trendy—espresso-brown, brushed aluminum with molten-amber illumination. The drive attaches to the computer via a USB cable and the total package weighs about 6.4 ounces. www.seagate.com

Other products for tax time…

For those who use memory cards for storage, Lexar’s dual slot USB card reader makes speedy downloading from multiple cards—or different card types—possible. The reader is compatible with compact flash SD and CF cards—and a cool plus is that when a data transfer is complete, the card reader closes up to protect against dust and debris. www.lexar.com

For those who want an offsite shelter for their digital files, Carbonite provides peace of mind, protecting against a home fire or flood or the more common hard-drive failure. The customer loads up digital files to the service, whenever and in unlimited loads, for easy on-demand retrieval. www.carbonite.com

For those who want to totally enjoy working on their taxes or any other computer task, the dreamy MacBook Air—billed by Apple as the world’s thinnest notebook and certainly looking the part—is now shipping to consumers. Measuring .16 inches at its thinnest, the MacBook Air still contains all the powerful features of other Mac portables—a full-size, backlit keyboard, a 133-inch display, a built-in video camera, a 1.8 GHz Intel Core 3 Duo processor with 4MB L2 cache, 2GB of memory and the traditional Mac applications. It is the Thunderbird of laptops. www.apple.com

For those who don’t quite trust the IRS’s online easy-filing system to offer the lowest in taxes, Intuit’s TurboTax software rates No. 1 in the nation year after year. The software is, as the company name implies, intuitive, designed to personal tax preparation based on the customer’s specific needs, life and employment. www.intuit.com

Looking ahead, taxpayers can anticipate rebates, discounts and other breaks for “green” purchases in the future—they already exist for the hybrid car and outfitting the home with solar panels. So consider spending greenbacks on green products in 2008. Chelsea Green Publishing offers a series of guides to eco-friendly living, including such work-related manuals as “Biking to Work” and “Greening Your Office.” Other books include guides on energy, composting, water and recycling. www.chelseagreen.com.