Office1000 Blog April Archive

Everyday Filing Tips

By Blog Stories at 04/13/2008 11:35

Paper. Trash. Paper. Trash. Paper. Trash. We've been disposing mountains upon mountains of paper trash already that I cannot track how much! Just look at that piled pieces of paper on your desk and you will see what I mean. At least have the decency to put these documents in their proper shelves and spare your office mates the eyesore. Not only is it unprofessional-looking, it won't make a good impression on your office mates and your bosses, either. After all, less paper means a greater peace of mind, right?

So what could you do to clean up the mess? Well, for one, you could limit yourself as to where you will put the paper. a small folder, perhaps, or a whole desk. Just make sure than when the shelves fill up, of there is no more space in the folders, you will take time to look at each piece of paper and check if they still have any use to you.

Better still, ask help from someone. What I notice is that many people find it hard to declutter because they still think that the pieces of paper in their shelves are still important. Lines like "I still might need this" and "I cannot throw this just yet" are so common that, in effect, you have not decluttered and just wasted time poring over your documents. With the help of a discerning workmate, you could tell him/her why you still need the document and he/she will judge if it is still worthy of keeping or you are just hoarding.

When you finish separating what is still needed from what is not, put back the still-needed ones in their original containers, clipping relevant files. Also do not forget to recycle what will be thrown out.

Retouching Your Wooden Furnitures

Even if you are the most careful person on earth, there will be a time when you will damage something. Or even you still haven't damaged something yet, time and nature will eventually put that 'something' down. For cheaper things like your mobile phone, perhaps, replacement is easy if it's already a few years old. But this is not the case with large, expensive, wooden furnitures. They are not easy on the wallet to replace, as they get even pricier when they get older.

So what you can do, unless you have the financial capability to replace, is to mend them. But how will you mend these wooden things when the brownish color starts to whiten and fade? Well, there is still a way. And that is through the use of specialty markers like this one from Sanford.

Sanford's Sharpie Touch Up Markers will do the covering of faded spots for you. As its name says, it touches up and brings your wooden stuff to their old glory. They blend well with the natural color so they don't go obvious, and do well with pine, mahogany, cherry, oak, and chestnut.

I personally have this kind of pen at home, though I think it is not Safco. I should say that these kind of markers really work. Once the ink of the marker dries up, you won't distinguish them from the rest of the natural color anymore. Best of all, the white areas are now back to their brownish color.

If it's a really bad case however, then these markers won't work for you anymore. What you'll be needing are drastic measures. Time for a repaint!

Mouse Vs Touch Pad

This has been a question that has sparked a lot of debate between computer users. Which is better, a touch pad that normally comes with a laptop, or a mouse that comes with a desktop (but may also be installed to a laptop)?

There cannot be any definite answer, of course, as it all depends on one's personal experience and preferences. What I will be telling is my personal experience.

I have used a touch pad for like a month, when my mom is still at home and I could use her laptop. I found the touch pad to be very irritating and annoying. What I immediately noticed was the difficulty to navigate the page. I especially disliked dragging folders because the texture of the pad isn't perfectly smooth, but of course one may say that this difficulty is due to my being new to the tool. I also noticed that my finger tip also gets a sweaty with all the navigation.

On the other hand, I have been accustomed with computer mice for a long time already. I used to use track ball mouse but it got broken, which is why I now use an optical mouse instead. Though not as good as using a tablet, computer mice, in my opinion, are easier to work with. There are less parts of your wrist that moves, so likelihood of having a problem with your bones is less. And mice come with attractive mouse pads, too. Sure I don't need it with an optical mouse, but it looks good on it than on a plain surface.

I make better works with MS Paint using a mouse than with a touch pad, by the way.

Presentations

Presenting has always been part of life. When we were still in elementary, there is Show and Tell. When you get to high school and college, you'll find yourself reporting in front of the class many times. When you go to the yuppie world, you will report at least once to a superior or a partner. Speaking in front of everybody is inevitable. What only changes is how you present what you have to present. Will you go traditional or techy? Whether it be merely a spoken speech or an audio-visual presentation, the people here from Office 1000 can help you with our products.

Our trusty partner, Safco, will provide us with one of its lecterns. It is only a tabletop lectern, so it's not difficult to carry. It's light, and it is also cheaper and more practical than the traditional half-body-size lecterns used in formal speeches. It comes with a shelf on the speaker side and may be attached to a multimedia cart.

But who needs to attach a multimedia cart when you have an audio-visual presentation rack altogether? Also from Safco, this Mobile Projector/Computer Stand with Locking Cabinet is made to help you set up your audio-visual system properly. It has specific shelves for the different electronic devices you will need, and comes with a locking cabinet where you can store the heavy devices when not in use. The whole cart, mind you, is scratch- and stain-resistant.

Fabric Pens

Imagine marking your kids' clothing with markers to, well, mark them with your names so that your kids won't be confused. You put the clothes in the laundry, wash them and all, and dry out. While inspecting them, you find a big blotch of black stain spread all over your kids' clothes. OR, imagine this happening to your favorite golf bag. Oh no.

Of course the best way to go around this is to NOT mark the clothes. Why mark them, anyway, when you would know whose shirt are those. But, of course, one sometimes cannot help but forget these trivial matters especially when he/she has a demanding working schedule. So when this happens to you, you should make sure that your marker is suitable for laundry use. You cannot just use any kind of marker because using any marker might lead to blotches (like what was mentioned above) or they might just be erased after the wash.

You'll have to use markers that are specially designed for laundry use. Of course we have that kind of marker here in Office 1000. It is called the Sharpie Rub-A-Dub Laundry Pen from Sanford. Unlike ordinary markers, they neither spread ink nor fade away after washing. It stays there through washing and dry cleaning. Perfect for your purposes.

And while you are at it, also do consider this fabric marker from Sakura of America. Unlike the one from Safco, it has two tips (a fiber fine point and an extra fine plastic tip), which you can use on your will.

Outsourcing

I have never failed to emphasize time and again in this blog how small our planet has become, thanks to the power of the Internet. Messages are sent as if they are spoken words. Pictures and videos are uploaded for the whole world to see, enjoy, hate, or critique. People from different parts of the globe are talking in real time. To sum it all up, sharing information is now very easy, as compared to the days before this technological revolution. The world has, indeed, become smaller.

Because of this, companies have found ways to diminish their operating costs. It's called outsourcing. In the past, this is only possible with companies in the same area, relegating some subprocesses (such as after-sales support) to third-party companies solely dedicated to it. Today, however, outsourcing work to people in another country is already possible. The world's number one outsourcing destination, in case you do not know, is India.

Some say that outsourcing work damages the local labor market. This is obvious, as some of the tasks are moved from their home nation to another nation where it is cheaper yet still has a good working quality. On the other hand, this has boosted the economies of the nations which served as outsourcing hubs.

Let us look in this special report about the state of India's outsourcing industry and how it has affected the greater economy.

YouTube Video

Digital Frames

I bet that everyone of us who is living in this age has already had an image of himself at least once. We love pictures. We love looking at them. Let's face it. And I am sure you still have your egoistic will to see your face, probably admire it, on paper.

Much like letters, however, the way we see them already changes as time passes--as technology evolves. Before, it used to be that it takes a fair amount of time before cameras even flash. I believe this is in the 1800's and early 1900's. Then came these speedy flashy cameras that use film. Even by today's standards, pictures shot using film are the most realistic ones. That is why many professional photographers still use them.

But, in the age of the Internet, there has to be a way to easily transfer these images. Pictures shot using film look good but they are not easy to transfer. Think, think. Aha! Why not make digital images! Yes, again, computers are out there to save the day. In a blink of an eye you already have a picture. In another blink (or a few more), it's already sent to someone in the other side of the world.

Despite this, many would still go for the traditional way of looking into things. No to digital, they say. They'd rather have their freshly-printed pictures inside their picture frames.

Why not combing digital images and picture frames? Yes, that's right. That way, things are digital, and yet you have the traditional way of looking at them. Where would you find such a digital picture frame? Where else but Office 1000!

Letters

Who writes a letter nowadays and sends it via post? It's rare to see someone who still does that today, with Internet technology and all. Aside from lawsuits, house bills, and other official documents, I can safely say that there are only a very few letters that pass through Mr. Mailman as compared during the last decade.

What does it feel like to write a letter? I can hardly remember. I can only remember a few letters that I personally wrote. One of which was a letter to my dad when he was still working abroad. I believe it was his for his birthday, then. Another letter that I can remember writing was for a 'friend' in the United States who never replied back.

I cannot give much justification to the letter. I cannot describe the passion that is tied to writing a note as well as you can describe it...how you stretch the sheet of paper and put it on your desk, how you pull out your fountain pen and make sure that there is still ink, how you started to put your pen on the paper and let the ink flow, how you carefully write every word to avoid erasures, how you finish the letter with words of endearment and your signature, how you fold it and put it in the envelope, how you gently seal it with a sealer or probably with your tongue, and how you carry it off and send it to the mail. I cannot describe it as well as you do, but I am sure that your words will be full of words that bear the years of memories that these letters bring.

The mailman will deliver letters less and less over time, but I am sure he will not disappear, because as long as there are good thoughts tied to him, people will not let him go away permanently.

What to Do With a Digital Recorder

It's a good thing that we already have digital recorders nowadays. It is a handy tool that lets us, well, record audio and video occurrences that may be helpful for our purposes in the future. There are many ways we can use a digital recorder. These are some of the uses that I could think of. Specifically, these are some uses for a digital voice recorder:

• Spy on your neighbors. If you are already bored with the shows that you see on TV everyday, then it's better to tune in to a better reality show--your neighbor's life! Ah imagine that, you are actually close to the TV set, instead of those reality shows, some of which are not 'real' anyway.
• Go to your enemy and let him/her everything that he/she has done wrong to you. It actually makes a good evidence during court proceedings. You may also scare him/her to do your bidding or else you'll tell the world how he/she stole your candy when you are still toddlers.
• Record your boss' voice while he/she is fuming mad. Don't you think it makes a good lullaby at night when you cannot sleep? Ah, just imagine that reddish glowing face of your boss while you are listening to that shrill voice coming out of the voice recorder.
• Sing a song and record it. At least you now have a piece to submit to those recording companies when they are looking for the next big singing star. Just make sure you have a good singing voice to begin with.
• Best of all, record your loved ones' voices! Nothing beats a new morning started with the gentle whispers of your love even when he/she is not around. Isn't that just sweet?

Ingenious Markers

I was, once again, browsing through Office 1000's extensive list of office items and I came across some 'cool" items that, I think, will surely get your interest. Well, it's either they are really a rarity, or it's just that this is the first time I have seen anything like this. I am talking about these special kind of markers from Avery and Sanford.

The ones from Sanford are these mini fine-point markers. I find them quite unique because of their size, which means they are attachable to your key chain, golf bag, backpack, and the like. It's cute and highly portable. It's not only useful but it makes a good decoration for your bag as well.

Another marker that I quite noticed in the selection list are these dual-tip erasable markers from Avery. It has one color, but different marker size. I do not know about you, but this is certainly the first time I have seen anything like that. I believe it's already high time that we get concerned over the volume of trash we make and optimize our resources. These special markers come in 4 different colors.

But there's still something here in Office 1000 that I found rarer than the mini and dual-tip markers. At least, the two markers mentioned above might still be seen in your local stationery store (I haven't seen them personally but I have the feeling that I will if only I asked some sales representatives)--unlike these third product, which I doubt you'll commonly see.

I am talking about the MARKLITER Highliter and Pen in One from Pilot. Wow, how come I didn't see any of these when, in fact, Pilot is a well known brand? Anyway, with this you will see man's ingenuity. It's a simple idea, but it's too simple that anyone would give time to think about it.