It was the name of the this collection that first caught my attention, but once I saw this image I was really intrigued.  Haute Bamboo is a collaboration between designers Bo Reudler and Olav Bruin, and “continues the quest to renew our connection with nature, guided by natural forms in an intuitive way”.

In this collection, both designers wanted to re-examine the aesthetics of bamboo, one of the world’s most renewable resources.  The Haute Bamboo Series will be officially launched during Fuori Salone Milan from April 14th through the 19^th.  See more here.

Originally posted on Six Different Ways

HP Officejet Pro 8000 Wireless

The HP Officejet 8000 Pro Wireless Inkjet Printer is a mid-range inkjet printer, aimed at home and small office users and designed to be an alternative to the cheap, low-end colour laser printers that have become readily available over the last few years. With a price tag of around the £100 mark, it is one of the more expensive inkjets available but still cheaper than a laser.

The first thing we noticed when setting up this machine was it does have a fairly large footprint and a fair bit of weight behind it, so you will need a large space on a sturdy surface for placement. Despite being large it does score high on the aesthetics front with its curved edges, meaning that it will blend into any space in which it is placed.

Set up is very straightforward. It is a single function printer so the software is simple, just the print driver and an internet print utility. Setting the wireless functionality up will take a little longer but the guided installation makes this a breeze. Once installed and switched on, the printer will begin its initialisation process. Maybe it’s just us, but this seemed to take a long time. At least 20 minutes passed before we could use it, and during that time it printed several test pages which to us seemed unnecessary and could have been condensed into one single sheet. The control panel is very intuitive and using the machine is as simple as can be.

Installation of ink cartridges which equally as simple. A front opening door allows the cartridges to simply slot in, and a top opening flap allows easy insertion of the print heads. The machine takes the HP 940 ink cartridges, which are also available in an XL version for black, cyan, magentaand yellow. While the HP 940s aren’t the cheapest cartridge, they certainly have a capacity that justifies the cost. It does have replaceable print heads though, which will need periodically changing and thus adding to the running costs. That said, it is still far cheaper than running a colour laser, and at the end of the day that is the target this printer is aiming for.

Once we began actually printing, the machine really sold itself to us. The speed comes very close to that advertised, 35ppm and 34ppm for black and colour print in draft mode and 15ppm and 11ppm for the equivalent in normal mode. Quality is not compromised either, with text and graphics being produced at near laser quality, and photographs printing at a quality that current laser printers could never hope to achieve. Another feature that impressed us is the fact that the machine comes with a duplexer, meaning that it can print on both sides of the paper. Most inkjet printers do not have this feature, and some low-end lasers lack it to.

In conclusion, the HP Officejet 8000 Pro is a fantastic printer for it’s price. If you are looking for a simple home printer for the occasional photos and the kids homework etc, then this may be overkill and too expensive; there certainly are cheaper inkjets available. But if you want quality photographs and high volumes of text with forking out for the high running costs of a laser, then this printer is a top choice.

Available to buy from IT247

Originally posted on Ink and Media Blog

Using too much paper?

Ink cartridges aren’t the only consumable that can cost you. Paper isn’t as expensive, but if you use a lot of it, it can definitely make an impact on your budget. And if you use a lot of it unnecessarily—well, that’s bad for the environment and bad for your bank account. Here are a few tips for cutting down your use of printer paper—whether you’re at home or at the office.

Be selective about what you print. You may not need to keep paper records of everything. Consider saving some important documents electronically instead. If you’re worried about the fallibility of electronic storage, store the documents on several different disks or thumb drives as well as on your computer. That way, you should be able to retrieve the documents from a different source even if your computer catches a virus or your first backup disc gets scratched.

Print on both sides of a piece of paper. This can cut your paper usage by half if you do it every time. Print on both sides of a piece of paper—set your printer to print this way if it has the capability, or take the time to print each page individually and reload the paper manually if it’s a smaller document. This may seem like a lot of work if your printer won’t do it automatically, but if you only do it for small print jobs it can still save you paper and money.

Be careful of what you print online. Sometimes it can be tough to tell how long a page is online until you print it. If you only need a certain section of a web page, copy the section you need into a word document and print that instead. If you need the whole thing but aren’t sure how long it will be, simply cut and paste only the text into a word document. You may find that you don’t need everything if it’s that long—or it’s not worth printing out at that length. Cutting and pasting the text into a word document for printing purposes can also save on printer ink.

Use the Preview feature. You should be able to look at a picture of how each document will look when you print it by clicking on “Print Preview” under “File.” This will keep you from printing a document that doesn’t look the way it should—before you fix the error. You can also check to see if any lines of the document go over into an extra page—you may be able to adjust your margins or edit the document down so that it fits on one page.

Communicate via email. Some traditionalists bemoan the downfall of the hardcopy letter. But it may not be such a bad thing to send your letters primarily via email. Don’t print out letters and send them in envelopes. Instead, use your email account and contact friends, family and others via email—and you’ll save plenty of money in postage as well as in paper. In addition, if you send important graphics and documents as PDF or Word attachments via email, you can save on paper as well.

Don’t copy—scan. If you have a multi-function printer or access to a copier at work, don’t copy every document. Instead, scan the original and make a digital copy. Once you have that, you can email it or store it on your computer—and you won’t need to waste paper or ink making another hard copy of the original. This can also save you plenty of money on paper at the office or at home.

A lot of paper is wasted in the office and even at home—and cutting down on how much you use can reduce costs as well as making your office or home more environmentally friendly. Be careful of how much you print—don’t print unless you absolutely have to, and send most important documents and communications via email. When you do print, use both sides of the page and use the Preview feature first to make sure you’ll only have to print once. With these and other measures, you should be able to reduce your paper waste.

Originally posted on Ink and Media Blog

Epson R300 Photo printer

Originally posted on Ink and Media Blog

As of 1st March Windows XP, Vista and 7 users will receive an update which prompts them to choose a browser…a change of pace for Microsoft, who used to force people into using their own Internet Explorer by default. The software will install a desktop icon and if your are using Windows 7 and IE is your default browser, it will unpin it from the taskbar. If the software is not started by the user, it will run the first time IE is loaded after updating, and will present users with a dialogue box with the choice. The choices will be Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Internet Explorer 8, Opera or Apple Safari. After choosing one, the software will then install it automatically and set it as default…removing the need to manually download and install a new browser, which not all users are comfortable with doing.

Users are now offered an automatic choice of browser

This all comes after a landmark ruling by the European Commission, stating that locking Windows users into using IE was unfair. It has been largely welcomed in the IT community, especially among web designers who are tired of accommodating for IE’s lack of support for industry standards, especially CSS 3 and HTML5. While these are still un-ratified and experimental, most other browsers have started implementing them and many developers and users feel that IE is behind.  Along with this news, there is mounting pressure on the UK government to phase out support for IE6, which is now outdated (first released in 2001) and insecure. Google has announced it will stop support for it on 1st March, and many other companies and governments are following suit.  Our advice? Use anything other than IE. Chrome, Firefox, Operaa and Safari are all good, secure and up-to-date browsers with their own strong points.  Our personal favourite is Chrome but this is a matter of preference. If you really really do insist on making your browsing experience insecure and inefficient by using a browser that is riddled with holes and cannot display many websites properly, then by all means stick with IE. But at least upgrade it to IE 8, which is the lesser of all the IE evils. Anyone using IE6 will soon find themselves in the dark.

Originally posted on Ink and Media Blog

Compatible Xerox Phaser 8550 solid ink sticks manufactured by Media Sciences are now available from Ink & Media Ltd. These are extremely high quality and very competitively priced offering exceptional value for money. Not only that Media Sciences compatible Xerox Phaser solid ink sticks are backed by their comprehensive warranty.

Xerox Phaser 8550 Solid Ink

Media Sciences Solid Ink Sticks for the Xerox Phaser 8550 Give You

• Brilliant Colour
• Exceptional Value
• Free Technical Support
• 100% Risk Free
• Full Protection Warranty
• Meets or Exceeds The Original Manufacturers Product Quality and Coverage.

We always supply our customers what is the best value for money when it comes to printer supplies. This is not necessarily the cheapest available if it is an inferior or sub standard product that affects the quality of printing and page coverage. Media Sciences solid ink is as good as the OEM and offers genuine savings allowing you to buy with confidence.

Originally posted on Ink and Media Blog

Those looking for an incredibly affordable printer will love this model. The price has dropped 70% since it was originally launched just a short time ago.The printer is designed for home users and it uses a two-cartridge system which is unusual for Canon. The print speed clocks in at around 13 pages per minute for the single colour print jobs in normal mode. Colour printing runs around eight pages, also in normal mode. It also has photo printing capabilities and it takes about 60 seconds to print a 4X6” print. Most owners of this printer report being pleased with its functionality despite how basic it is. It is not comparable to many of the fancy-pants printers on the market today, but considering the price of around £30, there can hardly be many complaints. The printer is stylish all decked out in black and some believe that gives it a higher-end appearance.

Also making it appear sleek is the lack of an output tray, but make sure you have it set on a table or desk that has space to catch your papers. It is a small printer, so if you are working in a compact space, it would still be ideal, even though you need a surface to catch the printing output.The rear paper tray of the machine folds down onto the front cover and the manual control features include only two buttons: one for undoing paper jams and feeding, and the on/off switch.

Canon IP1900 inkjet cartridges are priced reasonably for ink cartridges, around £15 per cartridge, but when you consider this is half of the cost of the printer, it seems a bit expensive. Re-manufactured ink is available for a bit less, but the £5 or so savings is hardly worth a trip across town to avoid the name-brand variety.

All in all, this is a great bargain printer. You will not be able to use it for big print jobs and the cost of the Canon IP1900 inkjet cartridges may add up over time, but if you want a quality new printer for a low price, give it a shot.

Originally posted on Ink and Media Blog

We had been using Norton Internet Security from Symantec for a good 5 years or so. It seemed to do its job; it kept us virus free. But we have recently learned that there is a difference between your virus protection keeping you virus free and your virus protection simply never reporting any issues. It was renewal time and instead of paying blindly for Norton again, we thought we’d do our research. Kaspersky Internet Security is the recommendation we kept receiving, so we thought we’d give it a go. At 5 licenses for the full Kaspersky package for £40,  it didn’t exactly break the bank so we were quite pleased before we’d even installed it. It was the first scan after installation where Kaspersky proved itself, and was the moment we lost faith in Norton forever.

5 years of Norton; 1 hour of Kaspersky

This screen shot shows the report that was returned from the Kaspersky scan on one of our machines. How’s that for a total number of malicious items? 343 viruses and trojans, and 2 items of riskware. No-one knows how long they have been there, or what damage they could have caused. Norton, which ran a scheduled scan and was kept fully up-to-date, never found a thing.  This was just the tip of the iceberg. 2 other machines reported over 200 items. The rest had no less than 20. Now we aren’t saying that Kaspersky is perfect; no virus protection is. They all have pros and cons and all will detect threats that others miss. But compared to Norton, it’s the best thing since sliced bread in our opinion. People of the world, share your virus experiences and lets rid the world of virus protection that does more harm than good.

Originally posted on Ink and Media Blog

Printer solid ink is used instead of liquid ink in special printers which melt wax based ink and spray it on to the paper.  The technology was first developed by Tektronix in the 1980’s . Xerox bought out the company in early 2000 and launched its own range of solid ink printers. The latest models today are the Xerox Phaser 8500, Xerox Phaser 8550, and the Xerox Phaser 8860.

Solid Ink Printers have several advantages over conventional inkjet and laser toner printers these are.

Ease of Use – very easy to use some laser printers can be more complex

Fast Printing – Solid ink printers  are the fastest colour printers in there class.

Environmentally friendly – requiring significantly fewer supplies and maintenance items compared to laser technology.

Wide Range of Paper – Solid ink printers are less sensitive than laser printers when it comes to paper thickness and quality therefore print on a wider range of paper.

Compatible Supplies – Over 30% in savings can be made when compared to Xerox branded solid ink sticks. Media Sciences solid ink is backed by a comprehensive warranty and is the informed customer’s choice as the premium quality price alternative.

Originally posted on Ink and Media Blog

Founded by Kanekichi Yasui back in 1908, Brother started out as a Japanese sewing company. That’s right, a sewing company. However the company was not known as Brother International Corporation as it is today. Instead the company was under the name Yasui Sewing Maching Co. and a few years later the company was renamed Yasui Brothers’ Sewing Machine Co. Even after succeeding in mass-production of domestic sewing machines the company again changed names becoming Nippon Sewing Machine Manufacturing Co. in 1934.

By 1954, Brother International Corporation, as they are now called, became established as a successful exporting company overseas. Their success was followed by many years of expansion and advances into other fields such as knitting machines and home electric appliances. However, the Brother that we know of today really came into view in 1971, when they launched the world’s first high-speed dot-matrix printer

Soon to follow were the electronic typewriters in 1985 in which the focus began to shift toward more business oriented products and devices. As Brother progressed through the twentieth century we even see the addition of telecommunication equipment and electronic stationary as part of their production line. Despite such changes in direction, the company continued to produce sewing machines under various subsidiaries.

Driven by growth, Brother began producing multi-function devices in 2003. Recently expanding into countries such as China, Brother is still at the head of printer sales. Over many years Brother has produced a variety of products such as machine tools, typewriter, label printers, fax machines, and other computer related products. Recently in 2008 the company celebrated their first 100 years of business. Today the Brother Printer Company is as big a name as many of its contemporaries in the market like HP, Canon, and numerous others.

Originally posted on Ink and Media Blog