Latest technologies: Netbooks

When the term first came to public notice, many thought that it was a typo that was supposed to be ‘notebooks’. Netbooks got their name from the fact that they are mainly used for surfing the Internet. These portable devices offer a great compromise between a handheld device and a full-fledged laptop and.

It all started with Asus’ Eee PC and then most other major companies brought out their own versions of these mini portable devices that are the bonsais of the mobile computing world.

These netbooks have been running modified Linux distributions for the most part. But some recent ones feature Vista home basic. There are also some models that are sold with a sort of ‘light’ installation of Windows XP. Microsoft of course is not all too happy about that and has openly declared that they are looking into the netbook market for making up some lost revenue.

A recent development has given the netbook market a performance boost. Intel has released a new chip called the Atom, aptly named because its key target area is the scaled down devices market. This of course includes netbooks mostly for now.

Netbooks have become really popular amongst people who are using it to access the Internet on the go. But this popularity perhaps would not have been possible without the advent of mobile broadband and its rapid spread in all major countries in all parts of the world.

Netbooks have filled a general gap in the market where people craved more than a tiny mobile handset screen but something more portable than a full sized laptop. It was really ingenious market targeting by Asus when the introduced the Eee PC because no one really thought of the possibility of this segment before them it seems.

The increasing popularity of the netbook is also reflected by the many new models that are constantly being launched by major companies. Companies that did not previously make computing devices are also getting in. Like the latest netbook from Archos, who are originally makers of digital media players.

Top players like Toshiba, Acer, Hp, Samsung and even Sony have stepped in to make good of the opportunity while it lasts. The large sales of the netbooks might also be due to the depression. That might sound like a contradiction but many people just want some notebook features but do not want to pay for a full-blown laptop. Hence they go for the netbooks, which are easier on the pocket and offer almost everything a notebook will do in a smaller way.

Endorsements by mobile carriers and providers are also big reason why netbook are so popular. Many netbooks come bundled with mobile broadband connections and sometimes even the other way around. Some netbooks also have onboard broadband connectivity options so a precious USB port is freed up because a dongle is not necessary.

So far, 2009 looks like a promising year for netbooks as many new models are set to hit the market and advancements in the segment are in the pipeline.

Neat Business Card Scanner

Scanning business cards accurately and organizing them properly is a major need for many large and small business outfits. It helps them keep track of their contacts, payments, receipts and such things. Their need for a good business card scanner is undeniable. This is why every Neat business card scanner is made with the needs of typical businesses and executives in mind.

These efficient systems come in portable and desktop variations and have a lot to offer in terms of speed and accuracy. They are bundled with the highly efficient Neat Scanner software that utilizes a highly sophisticated deployment of OCR technology to accurately detect all the data on a card.

A very important feature of the Neat business card scanner software is its learning capability. The Neat scanner software works with you and learns from your regular usage. It will start recognizing patterns, common company codes and will also make fewer mistakes as time goes by.

The neat scanners are now Mac friendly and bring all the accuracy and usefulness to the Mac platform.
Neat business card scanners are available in a slim and small portable format for mobile scanning. You can also digitize the information on your cards and receipts with Neat Desk, which is a larger scanning system meant to sit on your desktop. The Desk can handle cards, receipts and even multipage documents. The intelligent system reads all useful information and stores it up as data on the computer, reducing your manual work and increasing your time.

Selecting A Card Scan Machine

Conducting business these days can be an overwhelming experience. The digitization has ensured that you meet more people, connect more often and thus create a larger network than before. But when you see that pile of business cards you have accumulated, you know that you need to sort them out before they get out of hand. Thankfully, digitization is the solution to this problem to – enter the card scan machine.

This machine will scan your business cards, Id cards, license cards, forms, passports and many more such things and turn the information on the card to data on your computer. It does this with bundled software that works with the scanner to digitize your data.

With a card scan machine you can quicken the speed of application processing at your business; store the information from printed bills and receipts to you computer; scan forms and input their data automatically and do other such things that speed up business.

You can finally spend less time on typing out data on your computer and more time on other things that matter. The card scan machine increases the efficiency and productivity of your office.

The softwares that come with these machines are made with the needs of business in mind. They will categorize your data according to bills, business cards, receipts, forms, etc. This will save you many hours a month, which would’ve gone in to the tedious inputting and organizing of your data by hand. Purchasing this type of a machine will be a very smart move for most businesses.

Use Your Business Card Scanner And Export To Excel

Use a good business card reading software to use your business card scanner and export to excel the scanned information. You must choose a software that has very accurate OCR (Optical Character Recognition) capabilities. This will ensure that your cards are read and turned into data on your computer with minimal processing errors. Some of the better softwares are programmed to learn as you use them and hence they will start recognizing patterns and make fewer mistakes as they go along.

You can scan cards for data with a business card scanner, export to excel afterwards with a small step. Find a OCR software that reads scanned documents and also has the capability to export the collected data into an excel format file. This is usually a CSV or a comma separated value file that contains all you scanned data in a format that MS excel can read. Now go to excel and import the file in to your work.

So you can continue using excel’s powerful features for creating accurate and useful spreadsheets but get rid of the daily drudgery of entering your data by hand from printed documents. Get a business card scanner and export to excel easily with the advanced export features of card scanning softwares.

Go to your favorite online store and search for names like CardScan, Neat, IrisCard etc. because these scanners come with softwares that offer its users the facility to export to MS Excel. You may need to search for a step-by-step guide for exporting to excel on your software but most of the major manufacturers and developers do offer this option.

Latest technology: Accessories

After all the main gadget purchases have been made, you are likely to start looking for more gadgets that go with your purchases. These smaller gadgets work as add-ons to your brand new tech-toys and give extra functionality or just a wow-factor to your primary gadgets.

There is an overflow of accessories that are available for mobile phones. Most of these are headsets and various power adapters and portable chargers. The chargers are useful when you run out of battery juice in an outdoor situation. You can actually get a solar charge for charging all your power hungry little gadgets. The headsets very in form and style, you will even get headsets attached to sunglasses that are just superb to look at.

There’s even a Bluetooth handset that looks like an obsolete, retro telephone handset! The number of accessories increases when it comes to laptops. There are myriad collections of accessories for laptops that range from the funny to the bizarre. Of course most of them are useful in some way or the other. The best are the USB devices like mini fans; laptop lights that are often converged into creatively shaped devices.

There are USB hubs that look like little men and others that look like an anemone that is sprouting USB ports, fans and lights. There are also portable speakers for laptops and they come in various different styles and shapes.

The most varied accessory is the USB stick drive or thumb drive because it appears in absolutely creative avatars that are sometimes very funny or cool to look at. There are ones with wooden casing, with casing studded with precious stones, ones that look like a pendant and even this one ingenious design that looks like torn USB cable! There is this one fantastic product that is basically a rechargeable battery that can be charged via USB; the top comes off to reveal a USB jack.

There are also portable heatsinks for laptops that tend to heat up a lot. And there are special power adapters that can fit into almost any laptop with the provided attachments. There are portable USB webcam solutions for laptops.  Laptops also have USB portable storages and drive bays, which you can use to simply plug extra hard drives in and access them via your laptop. There are also several USB keyboards that are just dedicated to doing everything that your limited laptop keyboard cannot do and this includes special functions for gaming.

The iPod and iPhone have their own share of accessories. They range from add on microphones to various docks that are attached to speakers. Sometimes the accessories will cost more than the iPod itself, but if you appreciate quality and do not care about the price tag; you might try looking at some of the high-end options in this segment. The iPhone has various accessories that let you take pictures, capture audio, etc.

As it is apparent from this article that there are endless possibilities when it comes to accessories, especially because new ones are coming out almost everyday.

What Is The Best Business Card Scanner

It is a common question across various professional fields that need to store data from printed receipts and cards – what is the best business card scanner? The answer is actually a simple one – one that is capable of producing very high quality scanned images and is also equipped with a good OCR software.

The best scanners in the market have a high dpi (some have even 600 dpi) and they will reproduce a very sharp scanned image of the business card or any other document. As for what is the best card scanner supposed to be like, it is either going to be portable (for laptop warriors) or they are going to be bigger desktop scanners with special features to scan varying sizes of cards, receipts and documents.

When you are in the market for a good business card scanner, the ideal thing to do is to go to online stores and compare the models according to your own needs. Instead of just pondering on what is the best business card scanner, go into the details of the packages and offers. See what suits you best according to size, portability, quality and of course budget.

Some of these scanners are large multipurpose machines, others come in ridiculously small sizes for portability. Business card scanners come in packages with softwares so they start archiving your data out of the box. The accuracy of these systems usually depends on the software you are using them with and most have their own software and work seamlessly with it.

Scan Business Card To QuickBooks

QuickBooks by Intuit software is a very popular accounting software that is commonly used by small and intermediate sized businesses. Its popularity has caused many of the business card scanning softwares to offer the feature that enables you to scan business card to QuickBooks.

This feature has become common in card scanning softwares, on both PC and Mac platforms. There are also popular online financial data management services that allow you to export to your data in QuickBooks format. The advantages of being able to scan business card to QuickBooks format are many.

With this feature you get to keep your book keeping completely smooth with QuickBooks and you can use your business card scanner to automatically enter vital data from receipts and bills in to QuickBooks.

This is really a very handy feature to have for those who rely heavily on printed receipts and invoices that are crucial to their accounting. Just take your pick from the various softwares available on the market or the online services and use them to import your data into your QuickBooks Pro and QuickBooks premier, it is that simple.

So, to scan business card to QuickBooks, you need a good business card scanner (or other scanner) and an accurate OCR (Optical Character Recognition) software that reads the data from the scanned image. The software must support exporting or saving data to the QuickBooks native format. Hence with the right business card scanner and software combination, managing your financial documents with QuickBooks becomes a cinch.

Business Card Scanner Comparison

This is a business card scanner comparison between IRISCard Pro, CardScan and Neat business cards scanners and their respective softwares.

The IRISCard pro software gives you the option to use your own flatbed scanner to scan up to 10 business cards at a time. CardScan too gives you the option of using any scanner that you may have and on top of that, CardScan’s focus is on the actual contact management system. Thus providing you with an advanced database software that automatically files your contacts and retrieves them on demand.

Neat scanners also come bundled with a Digital Filing system that sorts your data into various categories like business cards, receipts etc. All three support the Mac Platform in addition to Windows.

On the hardware front, Neat gives you options between mobile scanners and a desktop scanner. The desktop scanner can handle pretty much anything and has robust build. CardScan has small, mobile scanners that are very compact and imminently portable. IrisCard provides a small pen scanner, a slim mobile scanner and a business card scanner that is also small in dimensions.

So regarding the actual physical scanner, this business card scanner comparison finds that CardScan does not have variety but has quality, Neat has two very potent products and IRIS has the most variety for a buyer.

No verdicts here because this business card scanner comparison article is meant to help you find a scanner that is best for your unique needs. According to popularity though, Neat and CardScan are higher up than IRISCard Pro. CardScan also has a free online service for its customers.

Self Inking Address Stamps

Stop using messy stamp pads and wasting money printing your address several times repeatedly. Get customized self inking address stamps that will reduce your incidental costs, save you time and are absolutely foolproof. There’s nothing to get wrong once you have made the stamp. Just put it on an envelope and stamp on your address or return address, precisely and accurately each and every time.
These stamps use an internal cartridge to store the ink and each time the stamp is used, it goes back to the internal inkpad and stays inked till the next use.

With self inking address stamps, there is no headache of getting it wrong or messing it up with a barely visible print. These stamps will last for up to 20,000 prints at least before needing a refill. The stamps will be properly formed each and every time. These heavy-duty objects are able to withstand regular rough use that is common at busy offices.

You do not have to slow down because your stamp can’t take it. Go as fast you want to without worrying about missing a print or smudging. With self inking address stamps you will not have to worry those things ever again.

There are several online places where you can create your own custom designs and templates for a stamp and then get it delivered to you. Multiple orders are always welcome at these places, as usual. So you can save some money by ordering for your entire office in one go.

Gift tags, stickers, labels

With the advent of the age of customization, anything is possible. Now you can get your gift tags, stickers, labels, etc. customized according your own unique designs and needs. The reason for getting these customized for your business is very simple –branding.

With these branded merchandise, you can ensure that your customers carry your branding everywhere they go. With custom gift tags, your store can ensure that all gifts purchased at your store carry your branding with them. This is truer with stickers and labels; you give them away for free and increase your brand’s visibility.

Custom gift tags, stickers, labels and other such things enhance your marketing efforts. You can have them customized by the same design team that has been working on your logo, your website, your products, etc. Once you have these designs, get online and get them printed into any kind of tags, labels or stickers.

By making catchy and well-designed gift tags, stickers, labels, etc. you make sure that your customers promote your brand through personal endorsement. This can be through sticking your logo on their cars, laptops or bags or may be through using your gift tag to mark presents bought from your store.
There are various places online where you can get these customized to your heart’s content. Let your ideas take flight and come up something that will ‘wow’ your customers in to using your tags and stickers. Make them according to your company image and client profile and you can’t go wrong.

Latest Technology: Small Personal Media Players

Since the days of the first iPod, the world of the personal, portable digital media players has gone through many revolutions and product cycles. Through endless research and innovations, they are now smaller, sleeker and more feature-packed than ever.

Apple has only recently launched the new iPod shuffle and it has completely done away with controls on the device itself. Instead, the controls are attached to the headphone wire. This makes the device incredibly small and can be easily clipped on. Even though the storage size has increased to offer a 4GB variant, many aren’t happy with having to buy special headphones or get stuck with the ones that are provided. Because the pet peeve for people regarding the iPod is always the sound quality, other than the need for iTunes of course.

Stepping up, Creative released the Zen Stone plus last year with many extra features added on to the original Zen Stone. It has been a competitor of the shuffle for a long time now. The Zen Stone Plus variant has a display and extra features like voice recording, FM radio and a stopwatch. Many people say that the sound quality of the Zen is better than the iPod. It has a fairly long battery life (claimed to be 9.5 hours), supports WMA files, has good built quality, all of which together make it quite popular.

Sony has recently launched a wireless, around the head type headset player that gives you the freedom to work out without getting tangled up in your headphone wire. This model, called the NWZ-W202, may not look appealing to some people but it is a really practical solution, which should be considered seriously by regular gym goers. And since this is Sony we are talking about; the sound quality is absolutely superb. The headsets neatly attach to themselves magnetically when they are not in use.

Samsung’s new YP-S2 pebble has also gained attention due to its unique and small form factor. The sound quality is decent although the battery life is not really that good. But given the price point at which it is selling, it is quite a good player.

A major new entrant is Sansa with their Sansa Clip. This otherwise ignored company has surprised everyone with its small music player that has superior sound quality; given the price bracket.
There many other options in the market for smaller players like GoGear from Philips, small players from iRiver (who happen to have very good quality sound and built), MobiBlu (also known as ‘Cube’ for its form factor). You can also look at manufacturers like Transcend, Cowon, etc.

All these are smaller versions of the larger portable players which now fully support video and many other extra features like eBook reading, picture displaying, acting as mass storage etc.

Most of these devices do not require any special software to fill them up with music, but some support folders while others may not support it. Go through their set of features and choose the one that suits your needs the best.

The Best Business Card Scanner

The best business card scanner that suits your needs perfectly will be easier to find if you know exactly what you want. Look at all the market leaders like Fujitsu, CardScan, Neat, etc. and you can decide which one you want by looking at their specifications and pricing.

These scanners come in mainly two different avatars – the portable and the desktop. For business executives who are always on the move, a portable scanner is the best option. These scanners are most often amazingly slim and small. Some also boast about being the size of a pen! Since most business executives are always on the move, the best business card scanner is a portable one that gets the job done without a hitch.

While buying a business card scanner, keep in mind that many of them allow you to scan more than just business cards. Depending on their size, they can digitize the data on receipts, identity cards, passports, and even photos can be digitized. It all depends on the kind of software that you are using. Most of the softwares are focused on categorizing and storing your business related data but some allow you to do other things as well like storing photographs.

The decision on the best business card scanner for your needs should depend on the image quality of the scanner, its build quality, how easily you can contact after-sales services, the bundle (if you opt for one) and the price. If you need software as well, look around for good combo deals.

Custom embossed business stationary

Thinking about corporate gifts? Have thought of extending your branding through these gifts? Extend your presence by gifting custom embossed business stationary. It will make sure that your gift to your employees and clients will carry your company’s mark everywhere. You can make mundane, boring stationeries come alive with company graphics and messages.

Your gifts can mean a lot when they are being given on special occasions. These can be achievement awards or the fulfillment of a major target. To commemorate these events, you can give away specially made custom embossed business stationary so that your company’s achievement and message is carried forward through time.

There are many stationary items to choose from and get customized. There are common gifts such as simple pens, pen stands, writing pads, cardholders and then there are costlier gifts like clocks, sophisticated pens, executive diaries etc. You can take your pick from these and many more such items and have them customized.

Custom embossed business stationary can be embossed through a variety of processes. Usually it depends upon the level of accuracy that is required and the surface that is being worked upon. For metal, chemical etching is usually used for highly precise work. Wood object are usually marked with laser. The end results are stunning when you see a wooden plaque or a metal clock with your company name, logo or message on it.

For the small investment that you make in these custom made gifts, you will get huge returns in terms of brand recognition and exposure.

Cheap Plastic Business Cards

Plastic business cards can help you stand out in the crowd. If you are worried about expenses, don’t be; it is not very difficult to get cheap plastic business cards made to your order.

One way to get them cheap is to search for a local business, to cut down on shipping costs and you can personally check things out to see if everything is in order. Also, make sure you either go for free templates or make your own designs. If you are looking for cheap plastic business cards, having someone else design your card for you is not a good idea because it will add to your cost.

Go online and search for businesses that have a good reputation and look around for prices. As long as you are not looking for very unique or sophisticated type of cards, you won’t be charged too high. The idea is to get the basic package and make your own unique card by having a terrific design that grabs attention. You don’t have to get a fancy card to make it catchy.

With a good printed design and no frills, cheap plastic business cards can set you apart from the rest of the crowd with ease. Get online with the best printers and sort through them to take your pick. Look for wholesalers and place a large order with them to reduce cost per card. This is a good time to get your employers to buy the company card, making your order larger and cheaper.

The Best Price For A Card Scan

The best price for card scan will vary from customer to customer depending on the unique needs of each individual. The standard and simple flatbed scanners start from around $60 and it goes up from there. These scanners can be used for cards, forms, notebooks etc.

There are a handful important companies that focus on business and financial data related scanning, like business card scanning, receipt and bill scanning and form scanning. They offer many different bundles that are designed to suit the needs of a variety of individuals and businesses.

The best price for card scan is usually between the range of $100-$150 and most of the common offerings fit inside this range and do not spill over to the higher side. Within this price range, it is possible to get good deals from makers like CardScan, Neat, BizCard, PlusTek and others who offer business card scanners.

These scanners are offered with bundled software in most cases and each and every one of them run on MS Windows. The Mac platform is also covered by most of the softwares and this provides good OCR capabilities to Mac users looking to use a card scanner.

As you hunt for the best price for a card scan, remember never to compromise on quality for a lower price. In many situations it is wiser to spend an extra twenty or thirty dollars to get a standard model plus software that has a good reputation than saving that money and going for a little known company.