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Give the Gift of Pictures and Printing |
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This year one of our staff is giving
the gift of photography. He's chosen
the FujiFilm Z5fd for it's feature
rich, yet compact design. This model
comes with 3x optical zoom, picture
stabilization for blur-free photos,
normal and telephoto shot modes, i-Flash
(Intelligent Flash) for better
picture tone and detail, a
reinforced acrylic protective shield
and many other interesting and
useful features. Priced around $200,
we can see why he chose such a
small, yet powerful, camera to give
to the amateur photographer on his
list.
Another great gift idea is the
HP LaserJet 1600 Color Laser
Printer. With the price of ink
printer cartridges running
upwards of $40 each and you do
any volume of color printing
including digital pictures you
are paying top dollar to keep
doing so. While toner for a
laser printer is a bit more
expensive you don't have to
replace it nearly as often,
print faster and often in better
quality, and never have to worry
about the ink drying out again.
At around $300 for this printer,
it has made the top of several
staff member's gift wish lists
this year.
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Give the Gift of Power |
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The old adage that power corrupts is
true. If your power goes out you lose
data. Even more insidiously, if your
power quality isn't good, you can get
data corruption and data loss over time.
And have you ever tried to untangle the
overgrowth of charger cords? Is there no
way to escape it? This season we
recommend giving the gift of power.
With prices starting price around $55,
you can get an uninterruptable power
supply for your electronics. Unlike the
power strips that we all have, these
devices filter the power coming from
your wall and smooth out the peaks
(power spikes) and valleys (power drops)
to normalize the power feed to your
devices. With the APC 500 and similar
appliances you can also have your
computer automatically shut down in the
event of power outages to prevent data
loss and corruption of your operating
system.
For those of us that have a lot of
portable devices, we constantly have to
check to make sure we have the right
chargers when we travel, and our desks
are littered with a jungle of cords too.
To correct this we have found two
products to ease our lives.
The first is the modular CallPod.
This charger has adapters designed
to fit over a thousand different
portable devices, and can charge up
to six at a time. You can purchase
the basic kit for about $100, or
customize your kit starting at $50.
Should you purchase a new device
that you don't have an adapter for,
all you have to do is order the new
one for around $10.
Another option for charging that is
also eco-friendly is the Solio
Universal Hybrid charger offered by
Solio. This design features solar
cells to charge your device. To
speed up charging just plug it into
the wall. You can charge most
portable devices up to two times
with a full day's sunlight. There
are several models and colors
available starting from $70.
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Great Gifts From Our Friends at
ThinkGeek |
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Our friends at ThinkGeek have graciously
allowed us to feature a couple of their
products this season. While they have a
wide array of novelty items targeted to
the IT professional, they also carry
items for anyone.
With the prevalence of laptops
today, we often hear people complain
about not having a full size
keyboard to use while on the road.
Not only does this wonderful
keyboard roll up for easy storage
and portability, but it is dust and
moisture proof. For only $23.99, we
think this little beauty is quite a
bargain.
Also for you laptop users out there,
we found a new lap desk design that
will keep your legs from cooking.
Made with Thinsulate, the Lapinator
lap desk helps protect you and your
laptop from heat build up while
providing a solid surface for only
$25 to $35.
Our final recommendation for this
holiday season is something anyone
can use. The Mandylion Password
Manager takes keeping your passwords
safe and secure to a new level. Made
to DOD standards, this device can
manage up to fifty username and
password combinations. It even has
software to generate strong
passwords along whatever criteria
you need. With the increasing
integration of technology, and
secure access to websites and
networks, the minor cost of $50 can
bring great peace of mind while
protecting your most valuable asset:
your personal and business
information.
Feel free to check out many of
the fun gadgets at www.thinkgeek.com.
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Preventive Maintenance: Not Just a
Catch Phrase
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By having your computer reviewed,
updated, and cleaned off regularly, you
can keep your system running optimally
and significantly increase its
longevity.
There are a few things that you can
do yourself, such as running Disk
Cleanup and Disk Defragmentation on a
regular basis. If you don't feel
comfortable performing these tasks, we
provide the option for routine,
scheduled maintenance of your computers.
If you don't want to have several
hours of non-productivity during
business hours, we have an option for
that as well. By utilizing our managed
service offering, you can have the
routine maintenance taken care of in the
background automatically.
Additionally, you will always have an
up-to-date inventory of the computers,
software, and hardware in use on your
network. More importantly though, you
will have proactive monitoring to allow
tracking of errors and help predict
technology needs related to hardware and
software failure, thus keeping your
network healthy and preventing data loss
and corruption.
Contact us for more information.
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